Loyola biofuel – A Loyola University Chicago student turned cooking oil into biofuel visited Kilmer Elementary School in Rogers Park, explaining how kitchen oil becomes fuel for campus buses and how a byproduct is turned into liquid soap used on campus.
On a day at Kilmer Elementary School in Rogers Park, students heard firsthand how something as ordinary as used cooking oil can end up doing serious work.
The visit came after a Sun-Times reporter. Amy Yee. wrote in April about Zach Waickman. a Loyola University Chicago researcher who turns cooking oil into biofuel in his lab. The story resonated with a school speaker organizer who works with sixth. seventh and eighth graders and reaches out to bring in professionals from the community.
Yee helped connect the students with Waickman, and Waickman “graciously came” to talk to the class. He explained where the cooking oil comes from: university kitchens. From there. he described how the oil is processed into fuel for campus buses. and he also told the students that a byproduct from the process becomes liquid soap. which is used on campus.
Speakers like Waickman are encouraged to share more than their science. The organizer says they also discuss their life journey and how it led to the careers they chose, and that the students were given that fuller picture.
Waickman’s own path wasn’t a straight line. As a high school student, his goal was to leave Cleveland and move to Chicago. He toured universities with his mother and his 8-year-old brother. When it came time to pick where to enroll. Waickman said he left the decision to his younger brother—and that choice led him to Loyola. where he studied broadcast journalism.
But during his time there, he became part of a project as a senior in which he was chosen among other students to develop cooking oil into biofuel. He says he fell in love with the chemistry, left journalism behind, and was hired to lead the lab after he graduated.
At Kilmer, he presented that story with “enthusiasm and humor,” according to the organizer. The message landed beyond the lab. too: the organizer says they hoped Waickman’s “nonlinear path” would help students keep an open mind. look for possibilities in whatever comes their way. and not discount advice from family—especially younger siblings.
Loyola University Chicago Zach Waickman biofuel cooking oil Kilmer Elementary School Rogers Park campus buses liquid soap