Depolymerization of poly(ethylene terephthalate) catalyzed by polymerized ionic liquids
발표자
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초록
내용
Poly(ethyleneterephthalate)(PET) has been widely used in various industries due to its excellent processability and mechanical properties. To reduce the environmental impacts of non-biodegradable PET, recent attention has been made to chemical recycling of PET in which the process chemically breaks down PET such that the resulting monomers can be used to repolymerize PET. Among the various chemical recycling methods for PET, glycolysis has been considered promising for commercialization since it produces a single product of monomer. However, metal-salt catalysts such as zinc acetate used for the glycolysis of PET are often unstable at the temperature for glycolysis and difficult to separate and reuse. To address this, we present a new organic catalyst based on polymerized ionic liquids (PIL). The PIL catalyst shows high depolymerization yields of PET comparable to existing metal-salt catalysts along with excellent thermal stability and ease of separation and reuse.