TITLE:
Material-Efficient Utilization of Waste Oils—Biodegradability and Other Chemical Properties of Vegetable Recycling Oils
AUTHORS:
Hanna Prokkola, Toivo Kuokkanen, Ulla Lassi
KEYWORDS:
Biodegradation; BOD; Manometric Respirometric Method; Waste Oil; Recycling; Vegetable Oil; Material Efficiency
JOURNAL NAME:
Green and Sustainable Chemistry,
Vol.2 No.4,
November
27,
2012
ABSTRACT: Material efficiency is nowadays an essential topic to promote the sustainable use of natural resources, waste materials and industrial by-products, in agreement with the principle of sustainable development and LCA (life cycle assessment). In this research it was determined the biodegradation of used vegetable oil based products and their important physico- chemical properties for their suitability in different applications such as chain oil in the forestry equipment and mold oil in concrete casting etc. Biodegradability is a measure of the ecological nature of products, and thus from an environ- mental point of view, is the most important evaluated property in this research. As a result, all measured properties of the studied recycled vegetable oils show that the products are environmentally friendly. Two types of vegetable oil were studied; three chain oils and two mold oils. The degree of biodegradation (BOD28) of the mold oils, was about 77 % and the biodegradation of chain oils was about 60% - 62%. In addition, this paper also presents a process outline for manu- facturing recycling vegetable oils.