Skip to main content
2023 AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
Back
Video

Industrial Oil Products

Session:: Green Chemistry and Oleochemicals

Utilization of waste fats to produce bio-based phenolic-fatty acid products

Monday, May 1, 2023
11:20 AM – 11:40 AM MDT
Room: 403
Abstract: Over 2.5 billion gallons of waste recycled cooking oils are produced annually in the United States. Their disposal poses a major environmental issue. If these oils can be converted into more valuable products (antimicrobial agents, e.g.), this will create an outcome that is beneficial, both economically and environmentally. In this paper, we will present our research on utilization of waste fats to produce antimicrobial agents (i.e., phenolic fatty acid monomers). We also evaluate the economic feasibility of the process using SuperPro Designer Software. To minimize composition variability of the feedstock waste, aggregated waste grease from a regional wastewater treatment plant was used as starting material. These waste fats may contain contaminants which foul catalysts and reduce synthetic conversion, so efficient purification must be performed before synthesis. Two purification methods (adsorbent/solvent/water extraction and wiped film distillation) were explored, and results will be discussed. Synthetic products were characterized by total acid number, iodine value, and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. All results obtained were compared to properties of antimicrobial monomers made from plant based fatty acids to ensure the waste fats’ suitability for producing the desired antimicrobial monomers.