Researchers Turn Used Cooking Oil Into Glue and Plastic

It turns out old cooking oil can be used to make more than biodiesel.

A research team at the University of South Carolina recently announced they were able to turn used cooking oil into substances that behave like plastics and glues.

Weird.

A little bit, yeah.  But potentially useful.  The stuff made from cooking oil is far more biodegradable than typical plastics, which are made from petroleum, so it could cut down on the amount of plastics that wind up in landfills or worse places, like the ocean.

It's also apparently easier to recycle, too.

So how good is the stuff?

Well, the science is over my head, so I'd need a serious refresher on high-school and/or college-level chemistry first before I even try to explain that.

However, some of the researcher's testing indicates serious potential as an adhesive, as in, on par with commercial-grade glues and epoxys.  One test had steel plates glued together and then used to pull a estimated one-and-a-half ton vehicle up an incline.  The glue reportedly held, so it's got some strength to it.

Another test saw the cooking oil-based adhesive molded into sticks for use in an ordinary hot glue gun. Tests of that version of the glue had a weight limit of over 250 pounds before the glue gave out.

That's great, but why should I care?

Like I said earlier, there's a lot of plastic in landfills around the world, plus the oceans and even our bodies.  Plastic isn't exactly energy or cost efficient to recycle, so not many places even offer the service.  If the oil-based materials are easier to recycle, that might change.