ENVIRONMENTAL SOLUTIONS THROUGH CHEMICAL UP-CYCLING

摘要

Several global mega-trends are clearly pointing to the undeniable fact that our current usage of non-renewable petrochemicals is not sustainable. For the last 200 years chemists and engineers have been responsible for facilitating the use of fossil fuels to drive the energy and material science behind our current quality of life. However, the non-sustainability of this approach is driving the scientific and business community to now develop new "green" technologies. Chemical up-cycling is a technology strategy where polymers from post-industrial or post-consumer sources can be chemically transformed into more useful monomers or polymers. The transformation of post-consumer poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) into virgin like poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT) is an example of chemical up-cycling,. This transformation converts largely disposable PET items into durable engineering thermoplastic resins and products. The energy and raw material saving are reviewed, as well as target products and applications.