Chemical Recycling: Comparative Study about the Depolymerization of PET Waste-Bottles to Obtain Terephthalic Acid
Year: 2019
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Currently, the plastic packaging industry in Brazil is the second largest producer in the packaging sector, with approximately 35% of the total packaging produced per year. Out of this total, 572 thousand tons are composed of polyethylene terephthalate plastic bottles (PET). In the ranking of the main materials discarded in the country, plastic occupies the third position and, in most cases, inadequately. Objectifying minimizes the amount of PET packaging improperly discarded and to instigate the industrial interest in the subject, our work pursued a viable path, as clean as possible in the principles of Green Chemistry, to depolymerize it. Obtaining the terephthalic acid as the main product, which is commercially obtained by oil sources and using salts and oxide of zinc as catalyzers in water as solvent, besides using inorganic bases as catalyzers in alcohols as solvent, including glycerol, which is a sub product of Biodiesel Industries. The reactions were made by refluxing (traditional way) and by microwave, where was used the reactor Biotage Initiator Plus. The products were characterized by Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR of Bruker) and Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography with Mass Spectrometer with Electrospray Ionization (UPLC-ESI/MS), where the results were better while using zinc sulfate as catalyzer in water and potassium hydroxide as catalyzer in pentan-1-ol.
Authors: Samir Cavalcante, Daniel Vieira, Isis Melo
Institutions: Exército Brasileiro, Instituto Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Language: English
Subfield: Polymers and Plastics
Field: Materials Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W3000594873