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US 2025/0319635 A1Published application
Methods and systems for high throughput separation and recovery of plastics from waste material
AssigneeThomas Valerio
InventorThomas Valerio
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and systems presented herein are designed for processing waste material to extract plastics. These methods and systems encompass comminution and various stages of gravity separation. For comminution, a ball mill or a rod mill can be employed. The waste material can be or can include automobile shredder residue.
Claims20
A method for recovering plastics from waste material, the method comprising:
- receiving waste material that includes plastic;
- sizing the waste material by size and shape to obtain a sized fraction;
- comminuting the sized fraction to liberate plastics and form a mixture of plastics and non-plastics;
- subjecting the mixture to a first gravity separation at a specific gravity from about 0.95 to about 1.05 to generate first floats and first sinks;
- and
- subjecting the first sinks to a second gravity separation at a specific gravity from about 1.1 to about 1.2 to generate (i) second floats comprising Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) and Polystyrene (PS) plastics and (ii) second sinks comprising other polymers.
3 more elements
A system for recovering plastics from waste material, the system comprising:
- an input assembly configured to receive waste material that includes plastic;
- a sizing unit operatively coupled to the input assembly and configured to sort the waste material by size and shape to produce a sized fraction;
- a comminution device operatively coupled to the sizing unit and configured to liberate plastics from the sized fraction to form a mixture of plastics and non-plastics;
- a first gravity separator configured to operate at a specific gravity from about 0.95 to about 1.05 and to separate the mixture into first floats and first sinks;
- and
- a second gravity separator configured to operate at a specific gravity from about 1.1 to about 1.2 and to separate the first sinks into second floats comprising ABS and PS plastics and second sinks comprising other polymers.
3 more elements
A method for recovering ABS and PS plastics from automobile shredder residue, the method comprising:
- shredding automobile shredder residue;
- sizing the shredded residue by size and shape to obtain a sized fraction;
- milling the sized fraction in a ball mill to liberate plastics and form a milled mixture;
- subjecting the milled mixture to a first gravity separation at about 1.0 specific gravity to generate first floats and first sinks;
- subjecting the first sinks to a second gravity separation at about 1.15 specific gravity to generate second floats comprising ABS and PS plastics and second sinks comprising filled polymers;
- and
- sorting the second floats.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.