2023 AIChE Annual Meeting
Chemical Recycling of Polyesters and Urethanes Via “Imidazolysis”
Polyesters (especially PET) and polyurethanes (PUs) are of particular interest for chemical recycling (i.e., depolymerization) as they are formed by condensation reactions (as opposed to free-radical polymerization). While post-consumer PET has been the subject of many studies in this area, PU materials are more challenging because they are often found as highly formulated thermosets (e.g., foams, rubbers). Common methods for chemical recycling of PET and PU have included hydrolysis, alcoholysis, ammonolysis, aminolysis, etc. Recently, we have developed methodologies for âimidazolysisâ of PET and PU materials using imidazole (and related compounds). Imidazolysis offers unique opportunities with respect to processing PET and PU waste, recovery of products, and versatility of the imidazole-carbonyl products for further chemical transformations. This presentation will discuss our efforts in this area.