Toxicity Assessment of a Biolubricant Exposed to Eisenia fetida

Abstract

In the current search for products that are friendly to the environment, the intent is to reduce the use of domestic, food and industrial waste of mineral origin, thereby creating new products that are functional in industrial and agricultural processes. That is why the use of raw chicken skin fat was evaluated for the creation of a biolubricant with possible applications in the operation of heavy machinery, such as agricultural tractors. The acute toxicity of the biolubricant made from transesterified fatty acids obtained from chicken skin fat was determined experimentally, using bioassays with Eisenia fetida as a test organism, by means of the median lethal concentration (LC50) using the probit method (p < 0.05) on the filter paper at 48 h and on an artificial substrate at 14 days, resulting in an LC50 of 878.675 mg mL−1 or 0.0268 mg cm−2 and 35.2348 mg kg−1, respectively. Likewise, the physiological damage was determined by means of histology, and it could be observed that there was no damage on the Eisenia fetida cell tissue. This indicates that the biolubricant is suitable for use in agricultural machinery since, in the event of an accidental spill, it does not cause damage to the soil or the organisms that live in it, as well as to the people who handle this type of product in their daily work.