How can bio-based lubricants contribute to India's energy conservation and green manufacturing goals? Illustrate with recent research examples.

Bio-based lubricants are formulations built on renewable vegetable oil bases such as castor oil, replacing mineral-oil derivatives. Because friction and wear silently drain energy from every rotating machine, such lubricants sit at the intersection of India's energy-efficiency and clean-manufacturing agendas.

Contribution to energy conservation

• Cutting frictional losses: lower friction directly reduces the power a machine must draw. A recent Indian study showed that adding just 0.1 wt% borophene to castor oil reduced friction by about 42% compared with pure castor oil [1].
• Extending machinery life: the additive forms a protective tribofilm of iron oxides, carbonaceous species and boron compounds that lowers shear stress, surface roughness and mechanical wear [1], deferring replacement and the embodied energy it consumes.
• Sectoral spread: gains are most valuable in renewable energy systems and marine applications, where downtime and maintenance costs are high [1].

Contribution to green manufacturing

• Renewable, biodegradable base: castor oil is a renewable and biodegradable lubricant base, limiting soil and water contamination from spent oil [1].
• Reducing petroleum dependence: substituting bio-bases for imported mineral base oils supports import substitution and lowers the carbon intensity of industrial operations.
• Agro-industrial linkage: castor is an established Indian oilseed crop, letting green lubrication draw on domestic agricultural value chains.

Illustration: the borophene–castor oil breakthrough (2026)

• Scientists at the Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology (IASST), Guwahati — an autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology, set up in 1979 [2] — demonstrated borophene, a 2D boron nanomaterial, as a lubricant additive for the first time [1].
• Borophene disperses uniformly in castor oil without chemical modification, keeping the formulation simple and scalable; findings appeared in ACS Applied Engineering Materials [1].

Bio-based lubricants thus convert a routine industrial input into an instrument of energy saving and pollution prevention. Scaling them needs standards for bio-lubricant performance, incentives for industrial adoption, and sustained support to DST's autonomous institutes so that laboratory results reach the shop floor — advancing SDG-9 and SDG-12 together.