551. Boosting methanolysis of polycarbonate (PC) for bisphenol A recovery from end-of-life PC and PC/ABS blend

Dambarudhar Parida, Annelore Aerts, Lizeth Vargas Perez, Carlos Marquez, Sam Vloemans, Karolien Vanbroekhoven, Elias Feghali, Kathy Elst, ChemEngJ, (2024), DOI: 10.1016/j.cej.2024.154390

Poly(bisphenol A carbonate) (PC) is an essential polymer from fossil sources. Currently, PC lacks any economically viable recycling strategy, which leads to a loss of valuable resources, and the accumulation of PC in the environment can have a negative impact on human health due to the leaching of toxic Bisphenol A (BPA). BPA recovery from PC wastes is a prerequisite to meet the demand for sustainable resource utilization and address environmental concerns. Hence, this work demonstrates the efficient BPA recovery from PC wastes via methanolysis at high PC loading (47 wt%) in the presence of a low amount of sodium hydroxide (NaOH, ≤0.05 wt%) at moderate temperatures (125 ◦C – 175 ◦C). Selected conditions prevented unwanted decomposition of BPA and ensured a mild alkaline product requiring simple purification steps to recover BPA. The environmental impact factor (ξ) of these processes was shown to be quite low compared to the ones represented in the literature. When these processes were used to recover BPA from real wastes: 93 ± 1.5 % of pure BPA was recovered from end-oflife PC roof panels (EOL-PC) after 30 min at 175 ◦C with 0.004 wt% of NaOH. On the other hand, direct recovery of BPA from the EOL-PC/acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (EOL-PC/ABS) blend was hindered by additive contamination and proceeded at a slower reaction rate due to the presence of ABS. However, subjecting EOL-PC/ABS to a decolorization-depolymerization method ensured ~94 ± 2.5 % BPA yield.