Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

ALKALINE HYDROLYSIS OF PET WASTE IN PRESENCE OF CTAB AND (C16MIM) BR.

Shital P. Kharwade, Vijendra Batra, Sushil Kapoor and Dilip B. Patil

Abstract

Alkaline hydrolysis of poly (ethylene terephthalate) PET waste has been carried out by sodium hydroxide in presence and absence of cethyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) and 1-hexadecyl-3- methylimidazolium bromide [C16Mim]Br under atmospheric pressure. The optimum parameters for alkaline hydrolysis such as amount of sodium hydroxide, reaction temperature, reflux time and particle size of PET waste has been determined. The average rate constant, k’ for alkaline hydrolysis is 12.26 × 10-4 min-1 at optimum conditions. The energy of activation Ea and frequency factor A are found to be 13.68KJ mole-1 and 1.43×10-3 respectively. The average rate constant, k’ in presence of CTAB and [C16Mim] Br are 16.50×10- 4min-1 and 1.90×10-3min-1 respectively and the values of energy of activations are 9.57KJ mole-1 and 5.47 KJ mole-1. The corresponding frequency factors are 1.83 × 10-3 and 2.03 × 10-3. The catalytic constants for kCTAB and [C16Mim]Br are 3.50 and 3.63.