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Recycled Plastics: Processing of Waste from Polyethylene Terephthalate Bottles
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Kuznetsov, Sergey V. |
| Copyright Year | 2002 |
| Abstract | By some estimates, within more than a 10 year period for which drinks have been sold in polyethylene terephthalate (PETP) packaging in Russia, at least 2 million tonnes of used plastic containers, a valuable chemical feedstock, has built up at solid domestic waste (SDW) sites. The explosive growth in bottle preform production and the increase in world oil prices, and, accordingly, in primary PETP prices, influenced the active formation in Russia in the year 2000 of a market for the processing of used PETP bottles. The recycled PETP market is developing dynamically and has a huge potential. According to data of the Association of European PETP Bottle Processors, PETCORE, in the period from 1995 to 2000 the amount of processed feedstock grew from 80 000 to 340 000 t/year, and within the past year a 23% increase in the volumes of processing has been observed. According to different estimates, 250 000–500 000 t PETP was imported into Russia in the year 2000 (mainly from the South Korean company “Kokhap”, and to a lesser extent from Mogilev), processed into preforms, blown into bottles, filled with drinks, and shipped to consumers. Under current conditions, this chain ends at the SDW site. There are several methods for processing used bottles. An interesting procedure is the intense chemical processing of recycled PETP with the production of dimethyl terephthalate (DMT) in the process of methanolysis, or with the production of terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol in a number of hydrolytic processes. However, such processing methods have an important shortcoming—the high cost of the depolymerisation process. Therefore, fairly well-known and widely used mechanochemical processing methods are currently more often applied, during which the final products are formed from a polymer melt. A considerable range of articles produced from recycled PETP bottles has now been developed. The main large-tonnage production is that of Lavsan PETP fibres (mainly staple) and the production of Sintepons and non-woven materials. A large segment of the market comprises the extrusion of sheets for thermal moulding on extruders with sheeting heads, and, finally, the most promising processing method is universally acknowledged to be the production of granulate suitable for contact with foodstuffs, i.e. the production of material for the recasting of preforms. Such material is produced by repeated recrystallisation and extraction under deep vacuum using high-tech equipment of such well-known manufacturers as EREMA, Bühler, OHL, Kreyenborg, and Berstorff. The comparatively low investments and service costs make such projects extremely attractive, and undoubtedly a huge amount of feedstock will be produced by this method in Russia in the near future. Bottle semi-products can be used for technical purposes: |
| Starting Page | 57 |
| Ending Page | 64 |
| Page Count | 8 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| DOI | 10.1177/0307174x0202900811 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.polymerjournals.com/pdfdownload/864355.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://doi.org/10.1177/0307174x0202900811 |
| Volume Number | 29 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
