Plastic Beverage Bottles

There should be. It depends on the identity of the material, though, as to which solvent you should choose.

It should also be possible to add a colorant, but again, which one to use will depend on the solvent/polymer identity. On this point, I would just try some and see what works best - starting simply with, as you suggest, food coloring.

Nice info lynlynch

Nice answer.

But I guess that this means one should not add rum to a plastic bottle of coke. Come to think of it, I don't see beer distributed in plastic bottles. I have seen large bottles of other liquors sold in plastic bottles. I wonder what formula of plastic is used for that?

Come to think of it, I don't see beer distributed in plastic bottles.

actually, I notice recently they are.

Where I live, Az. USA every beer bottle sold by vendors in stadiums is plastic.

It's all I can do to drink from a plastic beer bottle. _{The sacrifices I make.}

You answered the question about as well as anyone could and you get my GA. They recycle plastic bottles and make carpet yarn out of them at a plant near where I live. The first thing they do is run the bottles through a machine that looks like a de-barking drum but allot smaller and this removes the labels. the next thing they do is to chip the bottles up into small pieces and they are washed at some point in the early stages. After this I think they use heat via steam and/or hot oil or some other heating system to melt the plastic down and reform it into pellets. The pellets are sent through another machine that melt them down to make yarn and that is sent out to plants to make carpet with. I do not know what these machines are called but I do know heat is used in most all of the processes and I am not aware of them melting the bottles with a solvent or chemical. I also know that they color the pellets/yarn during some stage of this process. I will ask around and see if some of my buddies that work in the carpet industry can shed some light on the coloring process. I was thinking that you might use a source of heat such as an old oven to melt the bottles but you may need to do it in a special atmosphere to keep oxygen or other atmospheric gases from contaminating the plastic during it's molten state. I may be completely off base with this but an inert gas purge in the oven would be very easy to do if required.

Hi greencrow,

Would a low temperature melt be a better solution to turn them into some malleable form? Seems it would be a safer and easier option, maybe not an economical means. So long as you kept below the ignition point.

Bob

Thanks everyone. I did try some heat in the oven and a half hour of 10 minute 100 degree changes, up to 450 degrees did nothing but shrink and harden a medium sized PET bottle. I was looking for an alternative to buying materials to replicate stained glass for some trellis designs I made. I dont want to use glass because it breaks it's sharp and expensive. They have a low heat melt colored pellet at hobby lobby used for children or younger ages to make designs and then melt it together in your home oven. I am however interested in coloring plexiglass so that it wouldnt wear off real quickly. Any thoughts? Greencrow

Lynlynch had given an exhaustive summary of PET-[POLY ETHYLENE TERPTHALATE] synthesis and scope of recycling.

PET is a poly ester produced by condensation polymerization of ethylene glycol and terepthalic acid, for which the DMT, Ethylene glycol esterification is one of the process route being commercially followed.

Normally after the hot polymerization the hot melt is directly used for filament spinning and on contact with cool air the polymer gets solidified.

The second option is to form chips from hot polymer melt and flexibly use chips as melt raw materials for moulds and films.

Use of Titanium Dioxide gives opaqueness and pigments added to the melt polymer gives colour to the polymer, which is called DOPE dyeing.

As it is, the bottles can be molten and reused directly, being of thermoplastic nature, the energy costs may count, but it is simpler.

As per your enquiry solvents do exist for polyester called- META CRESOL-a phenolic group solvent which is marked by high cost, bad and irritating odour, which is not ecologically safer.

Apart from remelting and conversion , there are chemical hydrolysis methods to split and derive basic raw materials like terepthalic acid and ethylene glycol.

One such method is alkalization of polyester using 8 Normal caustic in presence of a surfactant,water and boiling temperature -the result out put being Di sodium Terphthalate and ethylene glycol with suitable segregation procedures.

Chemical Compatibility Database from Cole-Parmer (coleparmer.com)

Simply cross-check the specific plastic with the solvent, looking for "poor" compatibility.