Separation and Characterization of Waste Cotton/polyester Blend Fabric with Hydrothermal Method

In the study, a good separation efficiency of waste cotton/polyester blended fabrics (WBFs) was achieved, with dilute hydrochloric acid as the catalyst under hydrothermal conditions. The morphology and structure of the hydrothermal products including solid and liquid products were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform Infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and high-performance liquid chromatography techniques and compared to the untreated polyester and cotton. The results show that the cotton fiber decomposed completely while polyester still retained its fiber characteristics after 3 h of reaction time at 150 oC and 1.5 wt% dilute hydrochloric acid. The hydrolysis of cellulose resulted in a recovery of 96.24 % of the polyester without significant change in its properties; 48.21 % of cellulose powder can be further used as the raw material of microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and 15.57 % of glucose.