Use
DMT is used in the production of polyesters, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polytrimethylene terephthalate. It consists of benzene substituted with carboxymethyl groups (CO2CH3) at the 1 and 4 positions. Because DMT is volatile, it is an intermediate in some schemes for the recyclic of PET, e.g. from plastic bottles.
Hydrogenation of DMT affords the diol cyclohexanedimethanol, which is a useful monomer.
Read more about this topic: Dimethyl Terephthalate
Famous quotes containing the word use:
“... it is use, and use alone, which leads one of us, tolerably trained to recognize any criterion of grace or any sense of the fitness of things, to tolerate ... the styles of dress to which we are more or less conforming every day of our lives. Fifty years hence they will seem to us as uncultivated as the nose-rings of the Hottentot seem today.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)