Recycling of PET soft drink bottles involves heating with methanol and an acid catalyst to liberate ethylene glycol and dimethylterphthalate (methyl ester of pthalic acid). These can then be used as monomers to make new PET products. Write an equation for this recycling reaction.

Answer 1

Start with a word equation

PET + methanol -> ethylene glycol + dimethyl phthalate

Then convert to formulae

PET + CH3OH -> HOCH2CH2OH + CH3OCOPhCOOCH3

and I would put H+ over the arrow to show it is a catalyst

I can't draw a structure for PET or dimethyl phthalate here

For the structure of dimethyl phthalate see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyl_phthalate

The polymer (PET) structure is here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene_terephthalate