What is the difference between an oil and grease?
On a chemical level, fats and oils have a very similar structure. They are so-called long-chain esters. An ester is a compound of the trivalent alcohol glycerol and a long-chain carboxylic acid (also known as fatty acid).
The fatty acids differ in the number of carbon atoms (C atoms) contained in the molecule. By the way the individual C-atoms in the molecule are connected to each other, a distinction is made between saturated (no double bond) and unsaturated (double bond) fatty acids. The more double bonds there are in the molecule, the more liquid the lipid becomes.
Oils in which multiple double bonds are present in the molecule can be converted into fat by a specific hardening process, an example of which is margarine. The difference between an oil and a fat is therefore primarily in their firmness. Oils are liquid at room temperature whereas fats are usually solid. Most oils are of vegetable origin, such as olive oil or rapeseed oil, while fats are often animal products, such as butter or lard.
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