Palm oil is widely used in many countries especially in industrial and small scale frying activities. In 2006, our country produced about 15.9 million tonnes of crude palm oil, mostly used in food applications, especially for frying. The used frying oil (UFO) is either regenerated back to food-grade oil or used in non-food applications. One of the fast food restaurants in Malaysia alone produces about 1020 t of UFO a year, usually used to produce as animal feedstock. Recovered oil of good quality can be used as fatty acid source or in the production of feed oil, paint, ink, biodiesel, soap and other products, but the rest is burnt or discarded (Totani et al., 2004). UFO can also be re- fi ned into useful oleochemical derivatives for making lubricants, greases, plasticizers, detergents, candles and emulsifi ers. In MPOB, the technology for using UFO to produce methyl esters has already been established (Loh et al., 2003). The technologies to produce polyols from crude palm oil, RBD palm olein and RBD palm kernel olein is established in MPOB. This technology describes the potential use of UFO as an alternative for a new and cheaper raw material for the production of polyols.

Main Research: Tuan Noor Maznee Tuan Ismail