Efficient Chemical Recycling of Waste Polyethylene Terephthalate

This study demonstrates that the use of melt pretreatment drastically decreases 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, using a low-cost environmentally benign zinc 2-ethyl hexanoate as a catalyst for the chemical recycling of PET, the paper posits that energy calculations showed at least 8-fold reduction in the energy requirement for the depolymerization of melt-treated PET compared to the untreated PET.