Subcritical CO₂–H₂O hydrolysis of polyethylene terephthalate as a sustainable chemical recycling platform

Abstract

Under optimized reaction conditions, CO2 can provide acidity to the reaction medium to favor waste poly(ethylene) terephthalate hydrolysis for subsequent recycling/upcycling.

High-Efficiency Degradation of PET Plastics by Glutathione S-Transferase under Mild Conditions

“…We also detect the degradation products by using UPLC (Figure S23). As previously reported, mono­(2-hydroxyethyl)­terephthalic acid (MHET), bis­(2-hydroxyethyl) (BHET), and terephthalic acid (TPA) are common degradation products of PET. ,,,,− In this study, we propose the possible pathways including intermediates of TPA and MHET but with no BHET. Therefore, here we selected BHET and TPA as target molecules to verify the proposed degradation pathways.…”

Probing Supercritical CO2 to Improve the Susceptibility of Semicrystalline Polyethylene Terephthalate to Enzymatic Hydrolysis

“…To investigate possible scCO 2 -induced changes in the apparent number-average molecular ( M n ) in PET, all the other signals were assigned to protons corresponding to chain defects, such as oxidiethylenic methylenes (4.0 and 4.6 ppm), and end group protons of terephthalate ring (7.95 ppm) and oxyethylene (4.1 ppm) . For untreated PET, a M n of 34.8 kDa was calculated, which is in good agreement with the M n value (32.1 kDa) determined by size exclusion chromatography as reported in our earlier studies . However, slightly higher M n values for CO 2 -treated PET samples (varying from 41 to 45 kDa) were calculated.…”