Recycling of poly(ethylene terephthalate) - A review focusing on chemical methods

Recycling of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) is of crucial importance, since worldwide amounts of PET-waste increase rapidly due to its widespread applications. Hence, several methods have been developed, like energetic, material, thermo-mechanical and chemical recycling of PET. Most frequently, PET-waste is incinerated for energy recovery, used as additive in concrete composites or glycolysed to yield mixtures of monomers and undefined oligomers. While energetic and thermo-mechanical recycling entail downcycling of the material, chemical recycling requires considerable amounts of chemicals and demanding processing steps entailing toxic and ecological issues. This review provides a thorough survey of PET-recycling including energetic, material, thermo-mechanical and chemical methods. It focuses on chemical methods describing important reaction parameters and yields of obtained reaction products. While most methods yield monomers, only a few yield undefined low molecular weight oligomers for impaired applications (dispersants or plasticizers). Further, the present work presents an alternative chemical recycling method of PET in comparison to existing chemical methods.