Congratulations to our Ph.D. student Marco Rollo for his scientific publication entitled "Depolymerization of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) under mild conditions by Lewis/Brønsted acidic deep eutectic solvents" in Chemical Engineering Journal. Bifunctional Lewis/Brønsted acidic DESs composed of FeCl3⋅6H2O, cheap and scarcely toxic, in combination with a variety of acids, both mineral and organic, have been prepared for PET depolymerization. LBDES formed with methanesulfonic acid and para-toluenesulfonic acid are capable of quantitatively depolymerizing PET under mild conditions, with a temperature of 100 °C and a reaction time of 1 h, affording high purity terephthalic acid in high yield.
The work can be found at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2022.141092
