Catalytic Fabric Recycling: Glycolysis of Blended PET with Carbon Dioxide and Ammonia

• DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.3c03114
• Publication Date: 2023-07-17T14:25:44Z
• Authors: Yang Yang; Shriaya Sharma; Carlo Di Bernardo; Elisa Rossi; Rodrigo Lima; Fadhil S. Kamounah; Margarita Poderyte; Kasper Enemark-Ra...; Gianluca Ciancaleoni; Ji-Woong Lee
• Keywords: Ammonium bicarbonate; Environmentally Friendly

The ubiquity of nonbiodegradable polyethylene terephthalate (PET) materials has led to significant waste management challenges. Although PET plastics can be recycled, blended materials, such as PET/cotton fabrics, complicate the recycling process due labile glycosidic bonds in cotton. In this study, we present a practical and scalable approach for interwoven fabrics via catalytic glycolysis with ammonium bicarbonate (NH4HCO3), which decomposed ammonia, carbon dioxide, water. This outperformed conventional acid/base metal catalysis selectively recovering upcycling cotton-based materials. We demonstrated large-scale recovery textile from (up 213 g), showcasing advantages traceless using ammonia CO2 bicarbonate. Owing our metal-free reaction conditions, high-purity bis(hydroxyethyl)terephthalate (BHET) was obtained thermally repolymerized PET. Through thermal analysis, kinetics, control experiments, show that are crucial achieving optimal transesterification. Our method offered traceless, environmentally friendly, polyester cotton recovery, representing step toward sustainable, closed-loop production textiles.