(662f) Chemical Deconstruction of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) into Soluble, Nitrogen-Enriched Compounds for Microbial Upgrading

At present, plastic is the largest synthetic material produced around the globe; with only <20% plastic recycled, most of it ends up in landfills and open environments. Thermochemical recycling of plastic waste to their monomers has economic limitations as excessive purification and separation processes are required for complete recycling. In this research, we thermochemically generated nitrogen and carbon-rich product from polyethylene terephthalate (PET), avoiding the time and energy costs of direct enzymatic depolymerization prior to microbial upgrading. In the first step, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) was reacted in different concentrations of ammonium hydroxide (4-16%). Reaction conditions were optimized to control the C and N ratio in liquid, including solid loading (0.15-0.3 g/ml), reaction temperature (200-300ËšC), and time (5-30 min). Under optimized conditions, more than 97% solid PET was successfully converted into the soluble feedstock. FTIR and mass spectrometry techniques were used to characterize the residual solids and liquid products, respectively. The preliminary results suggested; that both natural and engineered microbial consortia can successfully use produced solvents as a sole feedstock to convert plastic into organic biomass as a potential food and feed product.