A group of scientists in Brazil recently showed how they produced biodiesel by combining used cooking oil and waste from lithium (Li-Ion) batteries, the types found in personal electronic devices and electric vehicles (EVs). Their study’s results were published in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy. The process has proven initially to be “viable, advantageous, and strategic,” the paper’s researchers, headed by Gilberto Maia de Brito, wrote. “It plays a key role in the disposal of the waste process, considering an alternative for the use/disposal of this lithium within a sustainable chain.”
To date, no commercial venture exists to capitalize on the researchers’ finding, according to Maia de Brito. However, the discovery provides a viable way to create a product from two types of waste while lowering greenhouse gas emissions from diesel exhaust, limiting the dumping of oil down drains, which damages plumbing, and keep Li-ion batteries, whose heavy metals and organic compounds can severely damage both humans and ecosystems, from ending up in landfills.
The Brazilians’ research might also help increase the value of restaurants’ oil waste, called yellow grease, already such a hot commodity in the U.S. that rings of thieves regularly steal it. Specialized U.S. companies train restaurant workers in how to store yellow grease so it can be bought and recycled. In Brazil, however, recycling of used cooking oil is uncommon, said Maia de Brito. Some nine billion liters of yellow grease are produced annually there, he added, of which less than 1% is disposed of properly.
Source: Karma Impact
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