Direct Conversion of McDonald’s Waste Cooking Oil into a Biodegradable High-Resolution 3D-Printing Resin

Abstract

Used cooking oil disposal is a concern at the global scale. Direct disposal from domestic households and restaurants via drains can result in serious environmental issues. In this study, waste cooking oil was collected directly from vats in a McDonald’s restaurant and acrylated via a straightforward one-step reaction. After the addition of a photoinitiator and without any photoinhibitor, the product can be printed using a commercial 3D printer. The formulated resin produced high-resolution prints with features down to 100 micrometers. The rapid prototyped prints show considerable thermomechanical stability, morphological homogeneity, and biodegradability when compared to a state-of-the-art research resin and a commercial resin. This paper introduces the concept that waste cooking oil can be directly converted into a high-value commercial 3D-printing resin, which may have considerable societal benefits including reduction of waste and carbon emissions.

Sustainable Photopolymers in 3D Printing: A Review on Biobased, Biodegradable, and Recyclable Alternatives

“…Vegetable oils are among the most commonly reported resources for biobased resins. The C=C bonds in the fatty acids are chemically modified, generally with epoxides, [ 20 ] acrylates, [ 21 ] or methacrylates, [ 22 ] which enables the formation of a thermoset network by UV curing. Modified soybean oil was one of the first vegetable oils applied in SLA to produce shape memory bioscaffolds.…”

“…One of the most recent advances in the field of sustainable resins is the development of a photopolymer resin from McDonald's waste cooking oil by Simpson and co‐workers. [ 21 ] The fatty acids of these oils were acrylated and the resulting resin was subsequently 3D printed. The prints demonstrated decent quality with slight over‐exposure ( Figure ), however it should be noted that, other than a photoinitiator, no additional chemicals were added to the resin.…”

High biorenewable content acrylate photocurable resins for DLP 3D printing

“…A microstructuring of initiator‐free AESO 16 and a larger scale prototyping of AESO with commercial photoinitiator Irgacure 819 have been reported 17–19 . Although printed parts were free‐standing solid polymeric materials, the prototyping of pure AESO had been challenging and time‐consuming process due to the high viscosity of AESO.…”

“…15 A microstructuring of initiator-free AESO 16 and a larger scale prototyping of AESO with commercial photoinitiator Irgacure 819 have been reported. [17][18][19] Although printed parts were free-standing solid polymeric materials, the prototyping of pure AESO had been challenging and time-consuming process due to the high viscosity of AESO. The AESO viscosity could be reduced by adding reactive diluents (RD) which participate in cross-linking reaction without deterioration of mechanical properties.…”

A Bio-Based Resin for a Multi-Scale Optical 3D Printing

“…We foresee this implementation to be radically simpler and more affordable for regular users of O3DP owning in the www.nature.com/scientificreports www.nature.com/scientificreports/ market available table-top 3D printers. A similar approaches were presented by two scientific groups, who has recently investigated a suitability of used cooking oil 61 and their self synthesized via the methacrylation epoxidized soybean oil 40 for commercial DLP 3D printers. Another uniqueness of our work is the demonstration of 3D structuring employing NLL with and without PI (on demand).…”