Cracking of waste cooking oil in the presence of copper slag

Abstract Waste cooking oil (WCO) as a kind of renewable energy has yet to be fully developed and utilized. Base on the elemental composition, WCO belongs to macromolecular organic substance composed of C, H, and O, which would be cracked into reducing gas at high temperature. Using WCO as a green reductant is a meaningful attempt, and has a broad application prospect. In present, WCO was applied as a reductant for copper slag cleaning, and the WCO cracking in the presence of copper slag was studied in detail. The results showed that higher temperature was beneficial to the cracking of WCO, and iron and zinc oxide in the slag could promote cracking of WCO. The metal oxides in the slag reacted with the deposited C, leading to an increasing of CO and CO2, which improved the gas yield of WCO cracking.