Circular recycling of polyester textile waste using a sustainable catalyst

A tremendous amount of polyester textile waste is discarded every year, which has caused a serious problem for the environment. In this study, the feasibility of circular recycling of polyester textile waste is investigated through a glycolysis process in the presence of environmentally friendly Mg-Al double oxides pellets as catalyst. Even though the catalytic performance of Mg-Al double oxides pellets is slightly lower than their granules at 240 degrees C, pellets were used as they benefit from a good recyclability. The pellet catalysts could be cycled three times without losing structural integrity or catalytic activity in the glycolysis of (poly(ethylene terephthalate)(PET)). However, to restore the catalytic activity after three cycles, the catalyst was regenerated through a heat treatment after the glycolysis reaction. After that the catalyst showed a comparable catalytic activity as that of virgin catalyst. In the glycolysis process, the monomer bis(hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET) is generated and recovered. The molar yield of BHET was in the reaction over 80 mol%. From the recovered BHET, regenerated PET (r-PET) with an intrinsic viscosity (IV) of 0.67 was synthesized. The r-PET showed a very good spinnability in the melt spinning test. The quality of the obtained r-PET fibers was comparable to virgin PET fibers. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study investigates the feasibility of circular recycling of polyester textile waste through a glycolysis process using environmentally friendly Mg-Al double oxides pellets as catalyst. The results show that the pellet catalysts can be cycled three times without losing structural integrity or catalytic activity, producing regenerated PET with comparable quality to virgin PET fibers.