Chemical and biological integrated degradation process for polyethylene terephthalate (PET), for recycling pet
AssigneeKorea University Research and Business Foundation
InventorsKyoung Heon Kim, Dong Hyun Kim, Dong Oh Han, Jae Kyun Kim
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Abstract
The present invention relates to a chemical and biological integrated degradation process for PET, for recycling PET, and, more specifically, the present invention provides a PET upcycling technique for producing a high-value product via a chemical pretreatment process of PET, a TPA and EG production process using an enzyme, and a process for converting TPA and EG to PCA and GLA, respectively.
Claims8
A method for depolymerizing polyethylene terephthalate (PET) into an oligomer using glycolysis as a process, with betaine acting as the catalyst.
A method of producing a high-value compound from polyethylene terephthalate (PET), comprising:
- producing bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET) through glycolysis of PET in the presence of betaine as a catalyst;
- depolymerizing the produced BHET into terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol via mono(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (MHET) through enzymatic hydrolysis;
- and
- converting the terephthalic acid into protocatechuic acid (PCA) through bioconversion in the presence of a biocatalyst, or converting the ethylene glycol into glycolic acid (GLA) through fermentation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.