Analysis of Recycled PET Products by Pyrolysis-GC-TOFMS

The circular economy is a global initiative that aims to realize a sustainable society by reducing the consumption of natural resources and maximizing the use of existing resources. Plastic recycling is an important technology for achieving this. For example, many PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles are reused as PET bottles through horizontal recycling, but some are used for different products through cascade recycling (downcycling). In addition, upcycling to use them in higher-value products is also actively carried out. In this recycling process, evaluating materials and products is vital for stable quality, and pyrolysis-gas chromatography mass spectrometry (py-GC-MS) is commonly used as an analytical method. This presentation will introduce an application for analyzing recycled PET products using the high-performance gas chromatograph time-of-flight mass spectrometer (GC-TOFMS) and the unknown compounds structure analysis using artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) based software.