Waste cooking oil used as carbon source for microbial lipid production: Promoter or inhibitor

In this study, waste cooking oil (WCO) co-fermentation with food waste by variable pH strategy was developed for microbial lipid production. Results showed that when WCO substitution rate within the range of 1.56-4.68% (corresponding to the WCO content in food waste), lipid production from Rhodosporidium toruloides 2.1389 could be increased by 7.2 g/kg food waste because of the better synergistic effect. Mechanism analysis revealed that the fatty acid salt produced from WCO under alkaline condition, as a surface active agent, could improve lipid production, but excessive WCO (29.2 g/L) would inhibit the lipid production due to its hindrance to the oxygen. The lipid composition analysis found that the produced lipid could be used as raw material for biodiesel production. It was estimated that 15.0 million tonnes of biodiesel could be produced from global food waste yearly by adopting the proposed WCO co-fermentation with variable pH strategy, together with reduction of about 0.31 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents and 1435 tonnes of SO2. It is expected that this study may lead to the paradigm shift in future biodiesel production from food waste.

Automated summary

This study developed a co-fermentation strategy using waste cooking oil (WCO) and food waste for microbial lipid production. It was found that adjusting the pH values within a certain range could increase lipid production efficiency. The produced lipid could potentially be used for biodiesel production, leading to significant reductions in CO2 and SO2 emissions from global food waste.