Pengolahan Sampah Botol Plastik Menjadi Monomer Bhet Sebagai Bahan Baku Plastik dengan Proses Solvolysis

Abstract

The use of plastic bottles made from PET (polyethylene terephthal ate) in all countries of the worl d is very high. Along with this, t here was a problem related to the pl astic bottle waste. Waste plastic bottle can contami nate t he environment because it takes a long ti me t o bi odegrade naturally. Processing and utilization of waste plastic bottles can solve the above problem. Plastic bottle processing techniques largely consist of two stages, namely conventional plastic processing (mechanical) and advanced plastic processi ng (chemistry). Advanced processing consists of several methods: hydrogenation, gasification, catalytic cracking, sol volysis and thermal treat ment. Solvolysis is depolymerization process (breaki ng the chai ns of the polymer so that the polymer is initially split back into monomers) usi ng certain solvents. The advantage of solvolysis process is pure monomer recovery. I n this experi ment, ethylene glycol was used as a solvent (glycolysis) due to its availability and economical reason. The desired reaction was a cracking PET bottles into monomer BHET (Bis-hydroxyethyl terephthalate). Glycolysis was carried out in a stirred reactor equi pped with condenser at temperature 180 C. PET plastic bottle 50 gram was mixed with solvent in reactor with cat alyst 0.1% wt NaOH. The experiment was run with reaction ti me variation ( 1, 1. 5, 2, 2. 5, and 3 hours) and ratio (gram : ml) waste PET bottle : solvent variation (1:1, 1: 1.5, 1: 2, 1:2. 5, and 1: 3 ). The monomer product was analyzed by FT-IR analysis and determined wei ght ratio product upon waste PET bottle. The results showed that the monomer product was BHET and the opti mum product was achieved at reaction time 3 hours and ratio waste PET bottle upon solvent 1: 3 (gram: ml)