Theoretical study of the transesterification reaction of polyethylene terephthalate under basic conditions

The depolymerization reaction of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) was analyzed using a computational chemistry approach. The reaction is a type of transesterification reaction using alkoxide. In this study we employed the calculated optimum structure, electrostatic potential distribution, activation energy, electric charges and pathway to investigate the mechanism. We found that the tetrahedral intermediate produced by ring formation with alkoxide is an essential feature of the depolymerization process. Moreover, there is a possibility that a PET molecule is depolymerized by multiple alkoxides at the same time. However, the effects of degree of polymerization and the position of attack by the alkoxides do not strongly influence the reactivity.