Development, characterization, and evaluation of novel eco-friendly metal working fluid

•Development of non-oil based eco-friendly metal working fluid.•Characterization of the developed metal working fluid.•Acute skin irritation toxicity study for developed metal working fluid.•Tribological and tool life studies on developed metal working fluid.•Comparison of the developed metal working fluid with the conventional metal working fluid. In this work, a new metalworking fluid (MWF) is developed. The developed MWF is eco-friendly, safe for worker’s health while satisfying the minimum criterion of lubrication and cooling. In the first step, a new MWF with additives like silicon dioxide nanoparticles, menthol, surfactant, and Xanthan were added in appropriate proportion to obtain the MWF with required properties. The preliminary experiments were conducted to analyze and compare the properties of developed MWF with conventional MWF. The properties like viscosity, thermal conductivity, specific gravity and density of developed MWF was found to be comparable with the conventional MWF. In the second step, the basic properties like physical and thermal stability, specific heat capacity and rheological properties of both MWFs were compared. In the third step, acute skin irritation toxicity study of the developed MWF was performed based on the OECD 404 standard. In the fourth step, the tribological properties like coefficient of friction and wear scar diameter were measured and compared with the conventional MWF and finally, the machining experiments were conducted to measure the tool life. The results show that the properties of developed MWF were better than the existing oil-based MWF.