Can vegatable oils be used to make plastics?

Question

I have always wondered if veggie oils of any kind, palm, rapeseed, canola, castor, olive etc. can make plastics?

Also since diesel is a by product of gasoline but diesel engines can run on veggie oil and veggie processed diesel why can't veggie oil be turned into gasoline?

Answer 1

They have worked on some plastics from vegetable oil, but as the 1st answerer said it is currently cheaper to use petroleum.

Diesel is not a byproduct of gasoline. Petroleum is a mixture of hydrocarbons. Gasoline is separated from the mix by fractional distillation, diesel is another fraction. Since there is not enough gasoline in petroleum for our uses, we also use a cracking process to make more from larger hydrocarbon chains. Diesel is a less refined product than gasoline. (By the way diesel engines are twice as efficient as gasoline engines in converting the hydrocarbon chains to energy)

Answer 2

Vegtable oils have a carboxilic acid group attatched to them.  Otherwise, many have a very similar molecular structure to gasoline.  However, this COOH group causes the molecule to behave very differently than a hydrocarbon fuel such as gasoline.  Right now, it's cheaper to get the oil out of the ground and refine it.  However, if the price continues to increase like we've seen over the past couple of years, there may come a breaking point where it's cheaper to refine the vegtable oil.