2004 Volume 77 Issue 8 Pages 293-298
The chemical industry based on petrochemistry has faced resource problems and environmental problems. And also the disposal of synthetic polymers that have been produced, used and scrapped in large scales for many years has become an important problem to clean up the earth environment. Recently the chemical recycling of synthetic polymers and the utilization of biomass as chemical raw materials have been studied in order to solve these problems. On the other hands the utilization of sub- and supercritical water is attracting increased attention as a medium for organic chemistry. This review is organized around the chemical recycling of synthetic polymers or the conversion of biomass to chemical raw materials using sub- and supercritical water as a reaction medium.
