Issue 10, 2009
From the journal:

Green Chemistry

Degradation of poly(ethylene terephthalate) using ionic liquids

Hui Wang,a   Zengxi Li,*a   Yanqing Liu,a   Xiangping Zhangb  and  Suojiang Zhang*b  

* Corresponding authors

a Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
E-mail: zxli@home.ipe.ac.cn
Fax: +86-10-88256093
Tel: +86-10-88256322

b State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Complex System, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
E-mail: sjzhang@home.ipe.ac.cn

Abstract

The degradation of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) was successfully achieved using ionic liquids. The products were separated according to their solubilities in boiling water. Average molecular weights of the main product were determined by gel permeation chromatography (GPC). The physicochemical properties of the product have been characterized by scanning electron microscopy equipped with an energy dispersive X-ray analyzer (SEM/EDX), X-ray diffractometer, infrared spectrometric analyzer, differential scanning calorimeter, and thermogravimetric analysis instrument. The influences of experimental parameters, such as the reaction time, reaction temperature, and addition of different catalysts on the solubility of PET were investigated. A study on the recycling of the ionic liquid shows that ionic liquid could be used repeatedly. Moreover, the solubility of PET in the recycled ionic liquid is higher than that in fresh ionic liquid. Further study shows that the increase of solubility in the recycled ionic liquid is attributable to the presence of a minor amount of water. A mechanism of the degradation of PET in 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([bmim]Cl) was proposed. In addition, the kinetics of this reaction was investigated. Results show that this degradation process is a first-order kinetic reaction and the activation energy is 232.79 kJ mol−1.

Graphical abstract: Degradation of poly(ethylene terephthalate) using ionic liquids

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/B906831G
Article type
Paper
Submitted
06 Apr 2009
Accepted
25 Jun 2009
First published
16 Jul 2009

Green Chem., 2009,11, 1568-1575

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Degradation of poly(ethylene terephthalate) using ionic liquids

H. Wang, Z. Li, Y. Liu, X. Zhang and S. Zhang, Green Chem., 2009, 11, 1568 DOI: 10.1039/B906831G

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