Mechanistic insight into the roles of anions and cations in the degradation of poly(ethylene terephthalate) catalyzed by ionic liquids.

Ionic liquids (ILs) have shown high catalytic activity in the degradation of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), but the effects of the anions and cations, as well as the mechanism, remain ambiguous. Glycolysis is an important recycling method that converts waste PET into monomers through various chemical reactions. To reveal the role of ILs and the molecular mechanism of the glycolysis of PET, density functional theory (DFT) calculations have been carried out for the possible pathways for the generation of bis(hydroxyethyl)terephthalate (BHET) catalyzed by isolated anions/cations and ion pairs at different sites.

Time-multiplexed stereoscopic display with a quantum dot-polymer scanning backlight.

We fabricate a time-multiplexed stereoscopic display, which is composed of a quantum dot-polymer (QDP) scanning backlight, 120 Hz liquid crystal display (LCD), and shutter glasses. Blue LEDs, which can excite QDP film to produce white light, are adopted to replace the traditional white LEDs. The QDP scanning backlight, LCD, and shutter glasses can be controlled by the synchronization signal and work together, enabling viewers to obtain parallax views.