Depolymerization Study of PET Waste Using Aminoethylethanolamine and Recycled Product Application as Polyesteramide Synthesis

Recycling of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) is a global concern due to generation of large volume of its post consumer waste and serious environmental problems caused as PET does not decompose in nature readily. Present research work aims at effective recycling of waste PET from soft drink bottles by aminolysis method and further utilization of the recycled product for high performance coating application. In the present study, we report aminoethylenethanolamine (AEEA) which till date is not studied much for chemical recycling of PET, having primary and secondary amine groups together with hydroxyl groups, for aminolysis reaction. The reaction parameters were optimized for conventional and microwave assisted technique by varying the ratio of raw materials, reaction time, temperature and power. The recycled oligomeric product was separated, purified and characterized for determination of amine value, hydroxyl value and by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, proton NMR ( 1 H-NMR) spectroscopy. Further polyesteramides were successfully synthesized by partial replacement of neopentyl glycol by aminolyzed oligomeric product along with sebacic acid and phthalic anhydride. These resulting polyesteramides were further cured with commercial polyisocyanate curing agents and applied on mild steel panels. The cured coatings were evaluated for their optical, mechanical, chemical, thermal and anticorrosive properties. The partial replacement of recycled product of PET wastes exhibited comparative coating performance properties with respect to polyester polyol synthesized without any component based on recycled PET waste product.