Methods and techniques to fabricate PET recycled nanomaterials: a review

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is one of the most used synthetic polymers. Therefore, it finds its application in a diverse range of products. This is the reason for its emergence as one of the persistent organic pollutants (POP). The PET materials can be recycled and converted into useful materials like nanofibers which can be used in various sectors such biomedical, food packaging, textile, and electronic industries. The presented review literature is an endeavor to explore the methods for conversion of PET into nanomaterials specifically nanofibers for useful applications. The review discusses in detail about PET recycling methods such as glycolysis, methanolysis, hydrolysis, ammonolysis, aminolysis, quaternary recycling, and biodegradation. In addition, methods for conversion of PET to nanomaterials including electrospinning, template-assisted synthesis and solvent-based techniques are discussed. Moreover, methods for characterization of PET nanomaterials such as spectroscopy (UV–Vis, FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), dynamic light scattering (DLS), Raman spectroscopy (RS), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectrometry (MS) are explained. Application of the nanomaterials produced from the PET materials are explored at the end of the review paper.