Chemical Recycling of Polyethylene Terephthalate: A Review

A great amount of polyethylene terephthalate-based disposable products and theirdischarge in nature as waste plastics create serious environmental concerns. Themechanical recycling of these materials to some polyester-based products accounts onlya small fraction of the waste materials. As a suitable alternative, the chemical recyclingprovides methods to remove PET from environment, produces high-value-added materials,by returning them to the production process in accordance with the principles of sustainabledevelopment of ecosystems, and creates job and research opportunities. Several chemicalrecycling methods such as alcoholysis, aminolysis, glycolysis have been explored andnumerous research works have been carried out to find suitable degradable materials,produce applicable materials, find ecofriendly catalysts under economically operatingconditions. Despite a remarkable number of research attempts on different methods inchemical recycling studies, there are still a few industrial or even semi-industrial chemicalrecovery plants and very little information available on them. This current article brieflyreviews the different chemical recycling methods applied in PET recycling production, therelative importance and economical issues of each method, materials and products, and theoperational conditions.