Abstract
It is well known that petroleum oil base stocks possess a number of limitations, such as being non-renewable, but even more importantly, they are considered relatively toxic with limited biodegradability. One class of base stock that is renewable with excellent biodegradability characteristics and that is generally, but not always, non-toxic is animal and seed oils. The quenching performance of many different animal and vegetable oil compositions has been reported in the literature. However, as a class, they suffer from generally poor thermal oxidative stability, even when containing oxidation inhibitors, when compared to quenchants derived from petroleum oil. This factor limits their potential commercial utility. One method of addressing this problem is to chemically modify the vegetable oil to produce increased resistance to thermal-oxidative degradation. This work discusses the physical properties and quenching performance of epoxidized soybean oil-based formulations and the resulting metallurgical properties, hardness, and microstructures obtained. These results have not been reported previously.
