EVALUATION OF DISTILLATION CURVES FOR BIO-OIL OBTAINED FROM THERMAL CRACKING OF WASTE COOKING OIL

ABSTRACT Bio-oil obtained from thermal cracking of waste cooking oil (WCO) is a complex mixture of different chemical compounds and, like crude oil, it is composed mainly of hydrocarbons. The large number of compounds in bio-oil leads to complex and expensive methods for its properties determination. In this study, the distillation curves were constructed for samples of bio-oils obtained from the thermal cracking of WCO in order to predict the properties (such as molecular weight, viscosity and refractive index). Although it is not often employed for bio-oil analyses, the distillation curve method is commonly used in the petroleum industry. Atmospheric and vacuum distillations were performed according to ASTM D86 and ASTM D1160 standards, respectively, for six samples of bio-oil and one sample of crude oil. The results were converted to true boiling point (ASTM D2892) according to the API method (1997) and common petroleum refining correlations were employed. The estimated values for the properties showed little deviation in relation to the experimental data. The bio-oil and crude oil samples contained heavy compounds in their composition, and all samples studied are considered as heavy oils considering the °API range.