From the results presented in Table 2, it could be observed that the
saturated and unsaturated fatty acid compositions of
PKBLT, were 81.81 % and 18.19 %, respectively. These
results show that, the percentage compositions of the saturated fatty
acids for the PKBLT sample increased, while that of the
unsaturated decreased, after transesterification of the PKO sample using
TMP. This could be due to the heat assimilation. This is because as the
heating temperature rises, it results to in the fatty acids
modification. Hence, the saturation level increases due to decreased
prevalence of two or three double bonds [49]. Henceforth, this
results in the polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) decrease, with
corresponding increase in the saturated fatty acids (SFA) [50].
Therefore, transesterification of PKO using TMP increases its saturation
level, making the modified oil more usable as biolubricant. The
predominant saturated fatty acid in PKBLT sample was
lauric acid, with 47.61 %. On the other hand, oleic acid was the
predominant unsaturated fatty acid, with 16.11 %. Similar fatty acid
composition was obtained for transesterification with trimethylolpropane
(TMP) of methyl ester of Jatropha curcas oil [4].
From the results presented in Table 2, it could be seen that the
saturated and unsaturated fatty acid compositions of
PKBLE sample, were 83.45 % and 16.55 %, respectively.
From these results (Table 2), it could be seen that even though the
percentage compositions of the saturated fatty acids increased, leading
to decrease in percentage of unsaturated fatty acid (oleic acid and
linoleic acid). It could be observed that there was more increase in the
percentage of saturated fatty acids present in the PKBLEsample, when compared to that of PKBLT samples. However,
like in the case of the transesterification of methyl ester with
trimethylolpropane (TMP), there was increase in the percentage of
saturated fatty acids. This was due to the heating, resulting in
increase in temperature, associated with epoxidation reaction. This is
because of the fact that heat treatment of oils or methyl esters,
induces fatty acids modifications with two or three double bond
[49]. These explanations, substantiates the reason for the decrease
and increase of the unsaturated fatty acids (UFA) and saturated fatty
acids (SFA), respectively [50]. The improvements in the stability of
the PKBLE and PKBLT samples were due to
increase in SFA samples as evident in the Table 2. Like in the PKO and
PKBLT, the predominant saturated and unsaturated fatty
acids in PKBLE sample, were lauric acid and oleic acid,
respectively.