Purification, Analysis and Surfactant Synthesis of Waste Cooking Oil

Abstract

Illegal discharge of waste cooking oil (WCO) not only causes environmental pollution but also wastes useful resources. Converting WCO into surfactant to partially substitute virgin vegetable oil is one of the measures for solving simultaneously the three problems of food security, pollution, and raw materials shortage. In this paper, the pretreatment of WCO was investigated, WCO and purified WCO were analyzed, purified WCO was used as an alternate feedstock for surfactant preparation by a chemical three-step modification process, structure characterization and surfactivities of obtained surfactant were demonstrated.