Extraction of Bio-Based Carbon Materials from Agricultural Waste as Additives for the Development of an Eco-Friendly Bio-Based Grease

Abstract

Harvesting large quantities of bananas produces tons of banana peel waste, which causes serious environmental problems in Egypt. Therefore, this study presented the transformation of banana peel waste into nanoactivated carbon for use as a nanoadditive in developing jojoba oil-based bio-grease. To extract nanoactivated carbon, banana peel waste (BP) was thermochemically treated by carbonization, activation, and combined activation/carbonization. The prepared samples were characterized using SEM and XRD. Particle sizes, as calculated by the XRD data for BP, Carbonized banana peels (CBP), carbonized/activated banana peels (CABP), and activated/carbonized (ACBP) were 113.24 nm, 96.56 nm, 86.18 nm, and 93.60 nm respectively. CABP of 0, 0.5, and 1.5 wt.% was mixed with jojoba oil and lithium stearate thickener to prepare the grease. Grease samples were tested for copper corrosion and dropping points. The lowest corrosiveness (1a) and highest dropping point (109 °C) were observed for grease, which had the highest weight of CABP (1.5 wt.%). It was evident that the addition of CABP to the prepared bio-greases had a positive impact on the grease properties.