• Clean Technology
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• v.13 no.1 s.36
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• pp.46-53
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• 2007

We depolymerized PET in supercritical methanol and observed the yield of DMT at various reaction conditions. At subcritical state below $240^{\circ}C$, the yield of DMT was very low, about only 50%. It increased dramatically to 80% at supercritical state above $260^{\circ}C$, thereafter the increasing rate was reduced significantly. Similarly, at subcritical state of 6.89 MPa, the DMT yield was only 50%, but it increased abruptly to 85% at supercritical state of 10.34 MPa, yielding no further increase above the pressure. Within 10 minutes after the beginning of the reaction, the DMT yield reached 80%, indicating that the significant portion of the reaction has proceeded, and then, the yield increased slowly. The methanol/PET ratio of 8 showed the maximum DMT yield. We found the optimum depolymerization condition fur PET methanolysis is temperature $300^{\circ}C$, pressure 10.34 MPa, reaction time 40 minutes, and methanol/PET ratio of 8.