Content area
Abstract
The degradation of Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles has been successfully achieved using hydrotalcite as catalyst and ethylene glycol (EG) as solvent. The reaction was carried out at boiling point of ethylene glycol (EG) (198 °C) and degradation was completed in 2 hrs. Monohydroxyethyl terephthalate (MHT) formed has been characterized by GC-MS, ^sup 1^ H-NMR, ^sup 13^C-NMR, FT-IR, X-ray diffractometeric and thermo gravimetric analysis. A study on the recycling of the solvent and catalyst shows that solvent and catalyst could be used repeatedly. The influences of experimental parameters such as the effect of temperature and time, role of solvent and catalyst have also been studied. A mechanism of the degradation of plastic bottle with hydrotalcite has been proposed. GC-MS technique shows that the purity of synthesized monohydroxyehyl terephthalate (MHT) (C^sub 10^H^sub 10^O^sub 5^) and recycled ethylene glycol was 99 %.