DATE2026.02.12 #Press Releases
Changing Plastic Bottles into Medicines: Accelerating Plastic Chemical Recycling
-Toward a Circular Society Enabled by Bead Mill Technology-
Summary
A research group led by Project Professor Haruo Ishitani at the Graduate School of Science, and Project Professor Shū Kobayashi at the President Endowed Chair for Green Material Conversion, has revealed that polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin processed by a bead mill treatment can be converted into its raw materials—dimethyl terephthalate and ethylene glycol—under an unprecedentedly mild condition of 90 °C. Moreover, by integrating the “bead mill treatment” and “catalytic methanolysis” steps, depolymerization can be achieved without any external heating.
The bead mill method is a technique in which materials are physically pulverized into fine particles using beads of < 2 mm in diameter in a solvent. Although this method has been widely used for physical size reduction, the chemical transformations occurring during the process have remained largely unexplored. In this study, the researchers discovered that chemical bonds within PET are cleaved during bead mill treatment, which leads directly to low-temperature depolymerization. These findings are expected to significantly contribute to chemical recycling technologies addressing the growing problem of plastic waste.
Figure：Low-temperature depolymerization of PET using a bead mill method.
Journals
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Journal name Chemical ScienceTitle of paper