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US 5,240,530 AGranted
Carpet and techniques for making and recycling same
AssigneeTennessee Valley Performance Products, Inc.
InventorWilbert E. Fink
Life of this patent
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AssigneeTennessee Valley Performance Products, Inc.
InventorWilbert E. Fink
Estimating the term…
The disclosure relates to a carpet, a process for manufacturing a carpet and a method for recycling a carpet. The carpet of the present disclosure includes a primary backing having tufts of synthetic carpet fibers protruding from a top surface and, optionally, a secondary backing, with an extruded sheet of an isotactic polyolefin polymer between and integrally fused to a bottom surface of the primary backing and an upper surface of the secondary backing. The process for manufacturing the recyclable carpet includes contacting the extruded sheet with the primary backing and, optionally, the secondary backing, at a temperature sufficiently high to integrally fuse the extruded sheet to the respective backing. The method for recycling synthetic carpet of the type described includes manufacturing the carpet, collecting portions of the carpet, and melting the collected portions to make a feedstock.
A method for recycling a carpet comprising the steps of:
A method for recycling a carpet comprising manufacturing a carpet, said manufacturing comprising contacting a bottom surface of a primary backing material having tufts of carpet fibers protruding from its top surface with an extruded sheet, wherein said fibers, primary backing and extruded sheet are all made from an isotactic thermoplastic polymer;
A method for recycling a thermoplastic polymer comprising collecting pieces of a carpet having at least a primary backing, tufts of carpet fibers protruding from a top surface of said primary backing, and an extruded sheet integrally fused to at least one of the primary backing or the tufts, wherein said tufts, primary backing and extruded sheet are all made of an isotactic polyolefin polymer;
A method for recycling a carpet comprising the steps of selecting portions of carpet formed from tufts of carpet fibers attached to at least one backing layer wherein the selected portions consist essentially of the same crystalline thermoplastic polymer, and melting said portions of carpet to produce an extrudable feedstock of that crystalline thermoplastic polymer.
A method for recycling a carpet comprising the steps of:
A method for recycling a thermoplastic polymer comprising collecting pieces of a carpet having at least a primary backing, tufts of carpet fibers protruding from a top surface of said primary backing, and an extruded sheet integrally fused to at least one of the primary backing or the tufts, wherein at least one of said tufts, primary backing or extruded sheet are made of an isotactic polymer;
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.