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Leung, Wai Hon (2025) Hydrothermal carbonisation of cotton and polyester clothing waste for hydrochar and terephthalic acid production. EngD thesis, University of Nottingham.

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Abstract

In the UK around 93,000 tonnes of clothing waste, which typically contain 55 % cotton and 23 % polyester, are sent to landfill every year. Under the European Green Deal, polyester terephthalate (PET) manufacturers are under pressure to increase recycling rates to 30 % by 2030. Therefore, this study focusses on using hydrothermal carbonisation (HTC) to produce terephthalic acid from both coloured PET and clothing waste containing dyes. The purity of terephthalic acid is important for recycling and typically needs to be over 99 % without measurable colour for manufacturing recycled plastic. Therefore, the specific aim for this study is to purify terephthalic acid from coloured PET bottles and polyester-containing clothing waste and, for the latter, to produce a hydrochar co-product that can be used as a solid hydrochar.

Prior to studying HTC of cloth containing cotton and polyester, it is important to understand the behaviours of pure cotton cloth. There are several previous studies on the HTC of cellulose, but none on cotton cloth. It was established that the main difference between cellulose and cotton cloth in HTC is the temperature at which aromatic carbon is produced in the hydrochar. These are 200 °C and 240 °C for cellulose and cotton cloth respectively. This is because of the flame-retardant chemicals added during the cotton cloth manufacturing process. The impact of post-HTC aqueous liquor as the partial feedstock was also investigated and it was found that this was beneficial for increasing the hydrochar yield for cotton cloth, implying that the water-soluble organics contribute to hydrochar formation through combination reactions. However, the increase in hydrochar yield was accompanied by a decrease in calorific value due to the oxygen content increasing.

Although the hydrolysis of PET has been widely investigated, there are no previous reports on how dye can be removed effectively to produce colourless high purity terephthalic acid from coloured PET bottles. The study of hydrolysis of polyester cloth showed that unreacted polyester increased with the Run of recycling aqueous liquor, due to the reactant (water) reduction. The yield of recovered terephthalic acid also increased with recycling the aqueous liquor, due to less dissolving which could be related to the water-soluble organics and ethylene glycol presence. For the coloured PET bottles, hydrolysis took place with pure deionized water. After that, the filtered solid product was mixed with sodium hydroxide solution to produce disodium terephthalate solution. The activated carbon adsorption was successfully applied to treat the disodium terephthalate solution. The removal of dyes produced a whiter and brighter sample of terephthalic acid compared to a commercial standard sample and reached over 99 % purity.

For the hydrothermal carbonisation of mixed cloth, the hydrochar yield increased on recycling the aqueous liquor containing any unprecipitated terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol. It is likely that the acid served as a catalyst to increase the hydrochar yield. This also reduced the oxygen content of the hydrochar leading to a higher calorific value. The study about producing high purity terephthalic acid from mixed cloth, needed one extra step to the process of removing dye from coloured polyethylene terephthalate bottles. The filtered HTC solid product needed heating without oxygen before being mixed with sodium hydroxide solution. After that, the other impurities, notably dyes, could be removed from the disodium terephthalate solution by activated carbon absorption as for the coloured PET bottles.

Item Type:	Thesis (University of Nottingham only) (EngD)
Supervisors:	Snape, Colin Uguna, Clement Meredith, William Gill, Andrew
Keywords:	hydrothermal carbonisation; HTC; terephthalic acid; hydrochar; cotton cloth; polyester cloth; coloured PET bottles
Subjects:	T Technology > TP Chemical technology
Faculties/Schools:	UK Campuses > Faculty of Engineering
Item ID:	80467
Depositing User:	Leung, Wai
Date Deposited:	31 Jul 2025 04:40
Last Modified:	31 Jul 2025 04:40
URI:	https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/80467

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