Chemists used waste cooking oil to create a sustainable, super-sticky adhesive that's strong enough to hold up hundreds of pounds of weight.

09/12/2025 (Live Science) - Scientists have converted waste cooking oil into various recyclable plastics with exceptional strength - and some were even durable enough to tow a car.

Turning nonedible waste into useful polymers is a sustainable way to create new materials, the researchers said in a new study published Nov. 28 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

"Waste streams offer a potentially attractive alternative to biomass-derived feedstocks [to make plastics]," the researchers wrote in the study.

One such waste stream is used cooking oil, where nearly 3.7 billion gallons is generated each year. This waste oil has so far found uses in lubricants, nonstick coatings and fuel, but much of it still gets thrown away. In the new research, the scientists found a way to convert the waste oil into useful plastic materials that are strongly adhesive and recyclable.

Oil consists of long chains of fatty acids bound to molecules of glycerol (also known as glycerin). The researchers chemically broke the oil molecules apart and then transformed the products into simpler molecules through a series of reactions.

Combining the final alcohol and ester molecules in various ways allowed the researchers to synthesize a range of polyester plastics. (Ester molecules have a carbon atom doubly bonded to an oxygen atom and also to a single oxygen atom with a carbon side chain.)

Testing the plastics' properties, including their melting points and crystallinity, revealed that these polymers are similar to low-density polyethylene (LDPE), a plastic that is commonly used in packaging and plastic bags.

https://www.livescience.com/chemistry/glue-strong-enough-to-tow-a-car-made-from-used-cooking-oil