Resources, Conservation and Recycling ( IF 13.2 ) Pub Date : 2022-09-06 , DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2022.106639 Ajmir Khan, Muhammad Naveed, Zahra Aayanifard, Muhammad Rabnawaz
We present an efficient chemical recycling/depolymerization route that is suitable for recycled polyethylene terephthalate (r-PET). The use of melt pretreatment drastically decreased the time required for the depolymerization of PET due to a reduction in the melting temperature of pretreated r-PET, increase in the molecular weight distributions of r-PET, as well as the occurrence of depolymerization both on the surface and in the bulk of r-PET. In addition, a low-cost environmentally benign zinc 2-ethyl hexanoate catalyst is used for the chemical recycling of PET. Energy calculations showed at least 8-fold reduction in the energy requirement for the depolymerization of melt-treated PET compared to the untreated PET. This study demonstrates establishing melt-pretreatment as an efficient chemical recycling approach for r-PET as compared to conventional chemical recycling without melt-pretreatment. As PET is produced in enormous amounts, the work demonstrated here can divert multi-million tons/year of waste PET bottles into valuable feedstock, thus conserving resources.
中文翻译:
废聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯的高效化学回收
我们提出了一种适用于回收聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯 (r-PET) 的有效化学回收/解聚路线。由于预处理的 r-PET 的熔融温度降低、r-PET 的分子量分布增加以及在表面和大部分 r-PET。此外,低成本的环境友好型 2-乙基己酸锌催化剂用于 PET 的化学回收。能量计算表明,与未处理的 PET 相比,熔融处理的 PET 解聚所需的能量至少降低了 8 倍。该研究表明,与没有熔体预处理的传统化学回收相比,将熔体预处理确立为 r-PET 的有效化学回收方法。由于 PET 的生产量很大,这里展示的工作可以将数百万吨/年的废 PET 瓶转化为有价值的原料,从而节约资源。