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Valorization of PET Waste Into Advanced Adsorbents for Pollutant Removal From Wastewater: A Review
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Scientists are turning plastic water bottles into powerful filters that soak up harmful pollutants—like pharmaceutical residues, hormone-disrupting chemicals, dyes, pesticides, and heavy metals—from contaminated water. This review paper summarizes existing research showing that instead of letting PET plastic waste pile up in landfills and oceans (where it can break down into microplastics), we can transform it into materials that actually clean up our water supply. This matters because it tackles two health concerns at once: reducing plastic pollution that ends up as microplastics in our environment, while also creating better tools to remove other danger
ABSTRACT Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a widely used thermoplastic polymer, poses a growing environmental burden due to its high production volumes, resistance to degradation, and persistence in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. While conventionally viewed as a pollutant, PET's chemical composition, rich in carbon and low in mineral impurities, makes it a valuable raw material for the synthesis of carbonaceous adsorbents. This review examines the emerging strategies for converting PET waste into high‐performance adsorbents for wastewater treatment applications, with an emphasis on scalable, energy‐efficient methods such as pyrolysis, hydrothermal carbonization, catalytic conversion, and solvothermal processing. Particular attention is given to PET‐derived porous carbons, nanocomposites, and metal–organic framework (MOF)‐based materials, which exhibit high surface areas, tailored pore structures, and notable adsorption capacities for a diverse spectrum of pollutants, including pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors, dyes, pesticides, and heavy metals. By consolidating recent advances, this review underscores the dual environmental benefit of mitigating plastic pollution and enhancing wastewater remediation technologies. The valorization of PET through upcycling into functional adsorbents offers a sustainable, cost‐effective path toward circular economy principles in environmental engineering.
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Researchers carbonized waste PET plastic bottles to create microplastic-like adsorbent particles and demonstrated their effectiveness in removing over 99% of methylene blue and methyl orange dyes from simulated wastewater, with adsorption optimized by response surface methodology and confirmed as exothermic, spontaneous, and applicable to real wastewater.
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