Study on alcoholysis recovery and performance of luminous materials in waste luminous fibers

To alleviate the wastage of resources and environmental pollution caused by waste luminous polyester fibers, glycolysis was found rapidly to degrade luminescent polyester fibers and assist in recovering luminescent materials from the fibers. However, the luminescent performance of recycled luminescent materials is poor. To improve the performance of recovered luminescent materials, this study employs the recovery rate of luminescent materials, initial brightness, and recovery rate of Bis (2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate as performance indexes. The present study aims at optimizing the alcoholysis process by influencing factors such as the amount of catalyst, amount of ethylene glycol added, and reaction temperature to improve the luminous performance, and explores the mechanism of alcoholysis reaction in the recovery process of luminescent materials. The results showed that, when the catalyst content is 0.1 g, the mass ratio of polyethylene terephthalate:ethylene glycol is 1:10, the reaction temperature is 170°C for 4 hours, the Bis (2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate conversion rate reaches 61.92%, the recovery rate of luminescent materials reaches 92.53%, and the initial brightness is as high as 5.607 cd/m2.