Studies of degradation of waste poly (ethylene terephthalate) using autoclave technique

Waste of poly (ethylene terephthalate) (PET) bottles is hydrolytic deploymerized in 0.5 l capacity high-pressure autoclave equipped with stirrer at 250°C and 16.596 kg/cm2 with and without lead acetate catalyst. The percentage conversion of PET waste into monomer is seen at 24.61%. The average molecular weight of PET is investigated and found to be approximately 11690. The degradation of PET in water with and without catalyst is compared in this study. It is found that by using catalyst, the conversion increases by 63.14% as compared to depolymerization without catalyst. The velocity constants are recorded as 10-3 min-1 and 10 -4 min-1 for with and without catalyst, respectively which is found to be first order with respect to PET concentration.