The Chemical Recycling of Polyesters for a Circular Plastics Economy: Challenges and Emerging Opportunities

Payne, Jack; Jones, Matthew D.

doi:10.1002/cssc.202100400

Cited by 229 publications

(252 citation statements)

References 304 publications

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“…In addition to mechanical methods, recycling can be performed via chemical depolymerization [111,116]. Chemical recycling has great potential in the circular economy of plastics; it can close the loop by producing starting monomers from the polymers that may be reprocessed to produce high-value-added chemicals [70]. It is estimated that, by 2050, almost 60% of plastic production can be based on recycled products [117].…”

Section: Chemical Depolymerizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Methanol is widely used and is effective for the solvolysis of various polymers such as PET, polyamides, and polycarbonates. The majority of post-consumer recovered PET is currently reprocessed by mechanical recycling; however, this process leads to molar mass reduction and a consequent reduction in the physical-mechanical properties of the polymer, which is generally used to produce carpets (72%) [70], along with a small percentage of PET for bottle production [129]. Moreover, the commercial appeal of mechanical recycled PET depends on the price of oil; thus, when oil is available at prices below $65 per barrel, mechanically recycled PET is no longer competitive [70].…”

Section: Methanolysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Methanolysis of PET is generally a degradation process performed at high temperatures (180-280 • C) and pressures (2-4 MPa), and the major products are DMT and EG [70,129], with high capital and operating costs. Recently, Pham and coworkers [124] developed a low-energy catalyzed methanolysis to convert PET into DMT at room temperature in the presence of K 2 CO 3 as a catalyst.…”

Section: Methanolysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To reduce the amount of plastic waste disposed in landfills or incinerated, there are two main strategies: the use of biodegradable biobased plastics (as mentioned above) [38,70] and recycling [71][72][73][74]. It should be reaffirmed that not all biobased polymers are biodegradable, while some fossil-based ones are, as clearly reported in Figure 4.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Recent Advancements in Plastic Packaging Recycling: A Mini-Review

et al. 2021

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Today, the scientific community is facing crucial challenges in delivering a healthier world for future generations. Among these, the quest for circular and sustainable approaches for plastic recycling is one of the most demanding for several reasons. Indeed, the massive use of plastic materials over the last century has generated large amounts of long-lasting waste, which, for much time, has not been object of adequate recovery and disposal politics. Most of this waste is generated by packaging materials. Nevertheless, in the last decade, a new trend imposed by environmental concerns brought this topic under the magnifying glass, as testified by the increasing number of related publications. Several methods have been proposed for the recycling of polymeric plastic materials based on chemical or mechanical methods. A panorama of the most promising studies related to the recycling of polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and polystyrene (PS) is given within this review.

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Section: Chemical Depolymerizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methanolysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methanolysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Recent Advancements in Plastic Packaging Recycling: A Mini-Review

et al. 2021

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“…[3,[8][9][10]. Due to the heterogeneity of these applications and the lack of suitable recollection systems, these PET applications are excluded from mechanical recycling at the moment [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Safety Evaluation of Polyethylene Terephthalate Chemical Recycling Processes

Welle

2021

Sustainability

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Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is one of the main packaging materials for beverage bottles. Even if this polymer is good to recycle, mechanical recycling processes need a well-sorted input fraction. For less-sorted PET packaging, or even non-food input sources, chemical recycling seems to be a solution to increase PET recycling. For post-consumer recyclates in packaging applications, it is essential that the safety of the recyclates is guaranteed, and the consumers’ health protected. For mechanical recycling processes, evaluation criteria are already established. For chemical recycling processes, however, such evaluation criteria are only roughly available. This study evaluated the safety of the chemical recycling process similar to the approach of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). However, due to the lack of information about the contamination level of the input materials for the chemical recycling process, the evaluation was adapted. In addition, the evaluation should be performed separately for the depolymerisation and for the repolymerisation steps. However, due to the high cleaning efficiencies of both steps, the evaluation can focus on the repolymerisation. This simplifies the assessment of the chemical recycling processes considerably.

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Photothermal Catalytic Polyester Upcycling over Cobalt Single‐Site Catalyst

Liu

Wang

et al. 2022

Adv Funct Materials

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Photothermal catalytic conversion of waste plastics into fuels and/or feedstocks using renewable solar energy can achieve solar-to-chemical conversion, resource sustainability, and environmental remediation simultaneously. However, the construction of photothermal catalysts with strong light absorption and high catalytic activity remains a great challenge. In this work, integrated cobalt single-site catalysts (Co SSCs), coupled with strong photothermal conversion, high catalytic activity, and stability, are employed to catalyze the glycolysis of polyesters. The unique coordination-unsaturated CoO 5 single-site can coordinate with the carbonyl groups in polyester, thus boosting the nucleophilic addition elimination processes. As a result, the spacetime yield of Co SSCs is an order of magnitude higher than that of general catalysts. In addition, the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) conversion and bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate yield in photothermal catalysis are 5.4 and 6.6 times higher than those of thermal catalysis under the same conditions, which are contributed by the localized heating effect. Technical economic analysis shows that the recycling of 10 5 tons of waste PET by photo thermal catalysis consumes 146.4 GW•h electrical energy and misses 7.44 × 10 4 tons of CO 2 emission. Therefore, a high-efficient photothermal catalytic plastic recycling system is of great significance for waste plastic valorization.

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The Chemical Recycling of Polyesters for a Circular Plastics Economy: Challenges and Emerging Opportunities

Cited by 229 publications

References 304 publications

Recent Advancements in Plastic Packaging Recycling: A Mini-Review

Recent Advancements in Plastic Packaging Recycling: A Mini-Review

Safety Evaluation of Polyethylene Terephthalate Chemical Recycling Processes

Photothermal Catalytic Polyester Upcycling over Cobalt Single‐Site Catalyst

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