Relationships between Structure and Lubricating Properties of Neopentylpolyol Esters

Abstract

Neopentylpolyol esters are high performance lubricants because of their high thermo-oxidative stability, their high flash point, and their low volatility. In this paper, we studied the influence of parameters such as functionality of the alcohol, length of the fatty acid hydrocarbon chain, degree of unsaturation of the acyl group, fatty acid mixture, and amount of diacid on the main properties for a lubricant such as viscosities at 40 and 100 °C, viscosity index, flash point, and pour point. Therefore, qualitative and quantitative relationships are presented for esters from alcohols including trimethylolpropane, pentaerythritol, and neopentylglycol hydroxypivalate and from acids from C5:0 to C22:1.