Investigation of the formation of poly(ethylene terephthalate) with model molecules. III. Metal-catalyzed esterification and alcoholysis reactions: Influence of the structure of the reactants and of the nature of the reaction medium

With a reaction conducted on model molecules with low amounts of catalysts and at low temperatures (170–225°C), it was shown that esterification is mainly catalyzed by the carboxylic acid groups and by the titanium derivatives; the activity of the other metals can only be seen when the concentration in carboxylic acid groups is low. In the alcoholysis reaction, the activity of Zn, Mn, and (much less) Ti, decreases when the percentage of ester in the reaction medium decreases, whereas it is the opposite with Sb. Moreover, Zn, Mn, and Co are sensitive to trace amounts of carboxylic groups (their activity decreases), whereas Ti is much less affected.