Study on depolymerization of polycarbonate in supercritical ethanol

• Published in: Polymer degradation and stability Vol. 91; no. 10; pp. 2307 - 2314
• Main Authors: Jie, Huang, Ke, Huang, Qing, Zhou, Lei, Chen, Yongqiang, Wu, Zibin, Zhu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2006; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Chemical reactions and properties; Degradation; Depolymerization; Ethanol; Exact sciences and technology; Mechanism; Organic polymers; Physicochemistry of polymers; Polycarbonate; Supercritical fluent; Depolymerization; Ethanol; Polycarbonate; Mechanism; Supercritical fluent; Reaction mechanism; Supercritical solvent; Liquid solid reaction; Kinetics; Experimental study; Activation energy; Thermal degradation
• ISSN: 0141-3910; 1873-2321
• DOI: 10.1016/j.polymdegradstab.2006.04.012

The characteristics of depolymerization of PC in supercritical ethanol were investigated in the range of 483–563 K by using a high-pressure batch autoclave reactor. Based on the qualitative and quantitative analyses of the products, a depolymerization-reaction model was proposed to explain the reaction mechanism, i.e. random scission and ester exchange reaction occurred simultaneously during the process of depolymerizaition of PC. It was suggested that the process of depolymerization consisted of subcritical region, transitional region and supercritical region. It was indicated that PC degraded with slow decrease of molecular weight determined by GPC and with the conversion of 7.5% at 513 K in subcritical region. While in the supercritical region, the molecular weight of PC decreased quickly and degraded completely in 30 min at 563 K. Continuous-distribution kinetics could be used to describe the mechanism of polymer degradation and the energy of activation for the random scission of PC in the supercritical region was 97.2 kJ/mol. Moreover, PC could be degraded completely into diethyl carbonate (DEC) and bisphenol A (BPA) with the yields of 89% and 90%, respectively, in supercritical region.