Originally Posted By: labman
All fats are esters. I think any use of unsaturated material as a PCMO is a bad idea. Tallow does have a long history as a lubricant. I highly doubt stripping hydrogen out of it would do much except lower the melting point at a large decrease in the inherent stability. Unsaturated fats polymerize in the presence of oxygen and metals, the higher the temperature, the faster. Yes you can delay it with additives, but I would rather see a pour point depressant added to the original stable, saturated fat.
Better yet, just conmvert it to the methyl ester and burn it as biodiesel.
Agree wholeheartedly with the second point.
As to the first, and it's nothing to do with your point...I can understand the process of hydrogenation, but how do you dehydrogenate, or introduce double and triple bonds into a saturated fat ?
Can you and I patent "heart healthy" lard ?