Catalyst of a Mytilus galloprovincialis shell substrate: optimization of alcoholysis conditions for the catalytic depolymerization of waste polyester films
Xingzhu Han, Guoliang Shen, Linlin Zhao, Ruiyang Wen, Haichen Wang, Sijin Jiang, Tiejun Xu · 2026
Read Catalyst of a Mytilus galloprovincialis shell substrate: optimization of alcoholysis conditions for the catalytic depolymerization of waste polyester films by Xingzhu Han, Guoliang Shen, Linlin Zhao, Ruiyang Wen, Haichen Wang, Sijin Jiang, Tiejun Xu (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13587839.txt.
Description
Xingzhu Han and co-authors turn waste mussel shells into a catalyst that breaks waste plastic back into a useful building block. The target is PET film, stripped of its aluminum layer, and the product is BHET, a starter chemical for making fresh polyester. Using ground shells of the Mediterranean mussel, the team first ran single-factor trials, then a structured design that varied catalyst amount, temperature, time, and solvent dose together.
Their fitted model was strongly significant, and its best recipe called for about half a percent of catalyst, 198 degrees, an hour and a half, and a set dose of ethylene glycol. Under those conditions the yield of the target chemical reached 83.95 percent. The authors frame the result as two wastes upgrading each other: shell waste drives the recycling of plastic waste. They call the route green, cheap, and promising for industry, since both feedstocks are abundant discards.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Xingzhu Han, Guoliang Shen, Linlin Zhao, Ruiyang Wen, Haichen Wang, Sijin Jiang, Tiejun Xu |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 36 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |