One of the current challenges in the vegetable oil market is refining capacity. In order to address this, we looked at the possibility of taking expeller pressed crude oil and processing it into industrial grades of refined vegetable oil to reliably service lubricant, and other industrial users with a more cost-effective product and further expand the reach of American Grown Soybean Oils, particularly High Oleics. We worked with a local elevator and crushing plant to source the High Oleic Oil and then worked with Alfa Lavall to evaluate the separation of different components in the oil as well as third party test labs to evaluate the chemical makeup of the different levels of refining that we developed. Finally, we utilized our in-house lubricant laboratory to test the functionality of the various grades for a variety of lubricant applications and formulated bar and chain, hydraulic, gear oil, wire rope and metal working fluids to evaluate the practical blending of the various grades of vegetable oil. So far, our results are promising. One of the main benefits that we have seen with utilizing expeller pressed oil over solvent extracted is fewer breakdown products that need to be removed. When oil is conventionally refined to a full RBD the distillation of the solvent exposes the oil to sustained high temperatures at the start of the process, creating more peroxides and free fatty acids than were present in the oil to start with. With the expeller pressed oil it does not experience the same level of breakdown. Additionally, we have had good success with formulating products, but will need to do more testing on the in-use performance of the products. Through networking facilitated by the United Soybean Board we are also engaged in trials with a large industrial user of this oil for fermentation processes. Moving forward we are going to be doing field trials of lubricants utilizing our industrial grades of High Oleic Soybean oils as well as exploring the other industrial applications that have been discovered through this project.

We have a project for the next project year to do field trials on the implementation of these oils. We have an excellent basis of knowledge of what the chemical makeup looks like for various levels of refining for lubricant performance. We will be testing the final product performance in the upcoming project year and with this knowledge we will be able to tie the product performance back to the types of refining done. Once the product performance is shown, we will be able to work directly with farmer crushers to help move some of their oils into the industrial market spaces. Additionally we will continue to work directly with the industrial users who have expressed interest in evaluating the potential for less refined oils in their processes.