Green approach for chemical production from waste cooking oils

Abstract

This work demonstrates a green conversion of waste cooking oil in a continuous mode into esters, fatty acids and hydrocarbons within seconds via cold plasma catalytic approaches. Up to 60 wt.% gaseous hydrocarbons (C1C6) was achieved within 11 s reaction time in hydrogen environment. Products distribution and selectivity can be easily tuned e.g. up to 43 wt.% esters (in the presence of Ni/Al2O3 in N2 environment at 30 W) or up to 46 wt.% fatty acids to be obtained (BaTiO3 packing under N2 at 30 W). The selectivity of products is strongly influenced by the environment, e.g. H2 environment promoting fatty acid methyl esters formation whereas hydrocarbons are dominant in N2 environment.

Keywords

• Waste cooking oil
• Hydrocarbons
• Green conversion
• Gas-liquid system
• Catalysis