Green Chemistry Challenge: 2024 Academic Award

University of Delaware, Professor Dionisios G. Vlachos

Professor Dionisios G. Vlachos is being recognized for developing new synthetic methods to produce lubricant base oils from renewable feedstocks. Lubricant base oils are the main component of lubricants and are used in many applications, including machinery and vehicles. The new technology uses biomass (e.g., plants or food waste) to produce the lubricant base oils instead of traditional petroleum-based materials. The process also eliminates some hazardous reagents, including corrosive acids, used in the traditional synthesis. 

Summary of Technology 

Lubricant base oils make up about 75-90 percent of commercially formulated lubricants. They represent about a $60 billion market and are used in a variety of applications, such as industrial machinery and vehicles. Traditionally, lubricant base oils have been synthesized from petroleum feedstocks. The new process uses biobased feedstocks, with sugars as the starting point.  The new method uses a heterogeneous (i.e., solid) catalyst, which reduces the amount needed and also avoids hard reaction conditions of existing bio-based lubricant production. Professor Vlachos’s team has developed three classes of bio-lubricant base oils with different properties, which they found can provide comparable or better performance to existing technologies.

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