Abstract: Taking polyester-cotton blended fabrics as the research object, the experiment carried out a hydrothermal degradation of polyester-cotton blended fabrics. According to the different hydrothermal reaction characteristics of cellulose and polyester, the paper studies the hydrothermal behavior of cotton fiber and polyester fiber in the hydrothermal reaction system. The results indicate that polyester fiber and cotton fiber show different hydrothermal characteristics. Under the hydrothermal conditions, cotton fiber is partially hydrolyzed to form powder cellulose and soluble oligose, while polyester fiber maintains the original form because of its hydrothermal stability. Therefore, polyester-cotton blended fabrics can achieve a good separation result. The optimized conditions are as follows: the hydrothermal temperature at 170 ℃, reaction time for 3 h, and the solid-liquid ratio at 1:20. Under these conditions, the recovery rate of polyester fiber reached 98.84%, the yield of glucose was 15.57%, and the residue rate of cotton fiber was about 66.47%. Based on the hydrolysis characteristics of polyester-cotton blended fabrics, the paper analyzes the potential value of recycling. The polyester-cotton blended fabrics can achieve highvalue recovery after the hydrothermal separation.

Key words: waste polyester-cotton blended fabrics; catalysis; hydrolysis; separation