The recovery of waste cooking oil has long been known for second life uses without chemical modification. However, the concepts of bioeconomy and circular economy are much more recent and include a ranges of tasks such as recovery, storage, use, chemical modification. International research into the use of modified and unmodified waste cooking oil and their potential uses has been the subject of incessant research in both academia and industry. The main purpose of this review is to present the recent breakthroughs obtained in the field of recovery of used cooking oils for the last decade. The review discusses advances obtained in major production pathways recently explored splitting in the following categories: (i) transesterification of waste cooking oil including biodiesel production with heterogeneous/homogeneous base and acid catalysis, magnetic heterogeneous catalysis, biocatalysis and alternative technologies such as electrolysis, continuous flow, microwave irradiation, ultrasound irradiation; (ii) transesterification of waste cooking oil including catalytic biolubricant production; (iii) interesterification; (iv) hydrolysis and (v) hydrodeoxygenation, hydrocracking and hydrogenation. This review also briefly overviews current understanding of waste cooking oil valorization and the underpinning mechanism
