Fermentation of used cooking oils (UCOs)

Waste cooking oil is a rich carbon source for bacteria, which is utilized in their metabolism to synthesize the fully biodegradable, non-toxic and biocompatible P3HB (a Polyhydroxyalkanoate - PHA). It has applications in cosmetics, biomedicine, packaging, agriculture and in 3D printing. 

Bacteria are able to produce up to 0,70 kg of PHA out of 1 kg of UCO.

One of the advantages of implementing a technology for UCOs valorization is that it is not required to start the selective collection of the oil from scratch.