The Reuse of Waste Polyethylene Terephthalate Bottles in the New Form of Paint

Abstract

This work involves the reuse of waste poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) bottles in thenew form of paint employing glycolysis degradation reaction using various ratios of trimethylolpropaneand pentaerythritol or ethylene glycol (EG) and pentaerythritol (PL) as reactants. Degradedproducts obtained were polyesterified in order to prepare two types of resins i.e., for water solublepaint and for paint using organic solvent. As a result, paint obtained from degradation reaction ofPET bottles using PET : EG : PL = 1.0 : 0.5 : 0.5 was found to have the best commercialproperties and did not show much difference from those of generally used industrial paint. Though,this prepared paint has lower gloss but it is still in the same standard level of semi-gloss paint. Onthe other hand, adhesion and impact resistant (1.15 kg-m) were also slightly lower than that of theindustrial paint (1.25 kg-m) but the bending resistance tested using cylinder having a diameter of3 mm was considerably good and it also showed good water and solvent resistant. This confirmsthe high possibility of the reuse of waste PET bottles to be a new product in the commercial formof paint which will be significantly useful not only for the reduction of pollution and waste plasticsbut also for the management process of plastic wastes. Moreover, the natural resource will be usedin the most value added way.