Polietilen Tereftalatoaren (PET) birziklapen kimikoa hidrolisiaren bidez

Abstract

The high demand for recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) driven by environmental awareness and legislation, together with the large increase in post-consumer PET plastic waste generation, has resulted in an urgent need for efficient recycling processes. Classical recycling technologies, such as mechanical recycling, are ineffective for those materials which show difficulties to be recycled or non-recycled plastics such as multilayer and highly contaminated waste. These technologies are only applied for a limited number of cycles, whereas chemical depolymerization produces raw materials from original PET to those of its initial production. In this context, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) hydrolysis is a sustainable strategy for depolymerization of PET waste that can be used as a starting element for repolymerization to rPET and that, unlike the other depolymerization technologies, tolerates highly contaminated post-consumer PET waste feeds. This work analyzes the current situation of PET solvolysis, and especially PET hydrolysis, both at laboratory and industrial scale, in which the most relevant aspects of its development are detailed.