Recycling of Polyethylene Terephthalate

Forrest, Martin J.

doi:10.1515/9783110640304

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Recollected clothes are a heterogeneous mixture of natural and synthetic fabrics and also blends, differing in quality. Automated sorting has been achieved by analyzing clothes using infrared sensors [ 176 ], but this technology is not widely available and most discarded clothes are sorted by hand [ 30 ]. Recycling usually targets monomaterial fabrics, which are easier to process than blends, whereas the latter are usually discarded.…”

Section: End-of-life Phasementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the shortening of the polymer chains during thermal recycling leads to a loss of quality [ 177 ]. Other disadvantages of thermal recycling are the high energy consumption [ 176 ] and the carryover of additives to the new product [ 9 ]. Chemical recycling is used to recover oligomers or monomers by the depolymerization of PET.…”

Section: End-of-life Phasementioning

confidence: 99%

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Analysis of the polyester clothing value chain to identify key intervention points for sustainability

2021

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Clothing is one of the primary human needs, and the demand is met by the global production of thousands of tons of textile fibers, fabrics and garments every day. Polyester clothing manufactured from oil-based polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the market leader. Conventional PET creates pollution along its entire value chain—during the production, use and end-of-life phases—and also contributes to the unsustainable depletion of resources. The consumption of PET garments thus compromises the quality of land, water and air, destroys ecosystems, and endangers human health. In this article, we discuss the different stages of the value chain for polyester clothing from the perspective of sustainability, describing current environmental challenges such as pollution from textile factory wastewater, and microfibers released from clothing during the laundry cycle. We also consider potential solutions such as enhanced reuse and recycling. Finally, we propose a series of recommendations that should be applied to polyester clothing at all stages along the value chain, offering the potential for meaningful and effective change to improve the environmental sustainability of polyester textiles on a global scale.

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Section: End-of-life Phasementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: End-of-life Phasementioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of the polyester clothing value chain to identify key intervention points for sustainability

2021

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“…In contrast to biodegradability and disposability, recycled polymers provide an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional polymers by saving virgin raw material resources, thus contributing to a circular economy and detaching from fossil dependency [42]. Among the recycled polymers, PET derived from post-consumer bottles is one of the few recycled plastics available in commercial scale with high quality [42].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Printed and hybrid integrated electronics using bio-based and recycled materials—increasing sustainability with greener materials and technologies

Välimäki

Sokka

Peltola

et al. 2020

Int J Adv Manuf Technol

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Printed and hybrid integrated electronics produced from recycled and renewable materials can reduce the depletion of limited material resources while obtaining energy savings in small electronic applications and their energy storage. In this work, bio-based poly(lactic acid) (PLA) and recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) were fabricated in film extrusion process and utilized as a substrate in ultra-thin organic photovoltaics (OPV). In the device structure, metals and metal oxides were replaced by printing PEDOT:PSS, carbon and amino acid/heterocycles. Scalable, energy-efficient fabrication of solar cells resulted in efficiencies up to 6.9% under indoor light. Furthermore, virgin-PET was replaced with PLA and rPET in printed and hybrid integrated electronics where surface-mount devices (SMD) were die-bonded onto silver-printed PLA and virgin-PET films to prepare LED foils followed by an overmoulding process using the rPET and PLA. As a result, higher relative adhesion of PLA-PLA interface was obtained in comparison with rPET-PET interface. The obtained results are encouraging from the point of utilization of scalable manufacturing technologies and natural/recycled materials in printed and hybrid integrated electronics. Assessment showed a considerable decrease in carbon footprint, about 10–85%, mainly achieved through replacing of silver, virgin-PET and modifying solar cell structure. In outdoor light, the materials with low carbon footprint can decrease energy payback times (EPBT) from ca. 250 days to under 10 days. In indoor energy harvesting, it is possible to achieve EPBT of less than 1 year. The structures produced and studied herein have a high potential of providing sustainable energy solutions for example in IoT-related technologies.

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“…The SEM examination has shown that the obtained impurities on the samples´surface addressed the need to clean materials before processing, especially in the case of multilayer materials. A solution for cleaning could be a hot caustic pre-wash that removes labels and contaminations [28].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-Processing of Multilayer Plastic Materials as a Part of the Recycling Process: The Features of Processed Multilayer Materials

2020

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The weight of packaging materials will be increased with advanced innovations, such as multilayer plastic. The consequence of the advanced innovations is challenges in the following reuse activities. This study aimed to investigate the properties of multilayer plastic materials after recycling processes and will increase the awareness of plastic packaging material for reuse options. In this research, the materials were produced from food packages by crushing them and treating them with injection molding equipment. The implementation of materials in the processing was tested, and the structural and mechanical characteristics of the produced plastic materials was evaluated and discussed. Based on the completed tests, plastic materials used in food packages have the clearest differences in the material features, for instance, the melt flow rate and elongation rate in the tensile test that varied between 2.96–48.4 g/10min and 2–289%, respectively. The variation in the characterizations ranged widely between the material structures. The results indicate that solid plastic packaging materials have better mechanical features compared to foil materials. The structural analysis of materials showed that multilayer plastic includes a wide spectrum of different elements within materials, creating a challenge for future recycling.

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Recycling of Polyethylene Terephthalate

Cited by 14 publications

References 0 publications

Analysis of the polyester clothing value chain to identify key intervention points for sustainability

Analysis of the polyester clothing value chain to identify key intervention points for sustainability

Printed and hybrid integrated electronics using bio-based and recycled materials—increasing sustainability with greener materials and technologies

Re-Processing of Multilayer Plastic Materials as a Part of the Recycling Process: The Features of Processed Multilayer Materials

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