Fe-containing magnetic ionic liquid as an effective catalyst for the glycolysis of poly(ethylene terephthalate)

By Hui Wang, Ruiyi Yan, Zengxi Li, Xiangping Zhang, Suojiang Zhang. 2010

186 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The depolymerization of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) in ethylene glycol could be catalyzed by imidazolium-based Fe-containing ionic liquid, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrachloroferrate ([bmim]FeCl(4)). This magnetic ionic liquid exhibits higher catalytic activity for the glycolysis of PET, compared with FeCl(3) or ionic liquid, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([bmim]Cl). Investigation also shows that the onset reaction temperature of the glycolysis process catalyzed by [bmim]FeCl(4) is much lower, being 140 degrees C. The proposed mechanism indicates that the high catalytic activity of [bmim]FeCl(4) is attributed to the synergic effect of its cation and anion. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Subfields: Biomaterials, Catalysis, Mechanical Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c105cb027f727b882c1fb1b70faa8bda9078f082