A process for recovering polyester

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to a process for recovering a polyester component and products of a non-polyester component from an article containing a polyester blend. The polyester blend consists of a polyester component and a non-polyester component. Particularly, the polyester component of the present disclosure is polyethylene terephthalate and the non-polyester component is at least one selected from the group consisting of cotton and viscose. The process of the present disclosure includes hydrolyzing the article using at least one hydrolyzing agent having pH ranging from 7 to 14 to obtain a first mixture containing the polyester component, the non-polyester component, optionally, products of the non-polyester component and the hydrolyzing agent. This is followed by incubating the first mixture using at least one enzyme selected from the group consisting of cellulose and pectinase to further convert the non-polyester component into products of the non-polyester component thereby releasing the polyester component.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.