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US 6,852,256 B2Granted
Process for upgrading plastic material
AssigneeBuhler AG
InventorsCamille Borer, Brent Allen Culbert
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
In a process for upgrading cleaned used plastic material to be reclaimed, all steps are performed in a continuous way so as to extrude continuously the plastic material to provide elongated strands thereof, cutting the strands continuously as they are supplied by extrusion to convert them into pellets. Then, the pellets are fed without any intermediate storage to a continuous crystallizer in a stream of hot gas to heat the pellets to crystallizing temperature.
Claims13
A process for upgrading non-virgin plastic material to be reclaimed comprising the steps of
- continuously extruding said plastic material to provide elongated strands thereof;
- continuously cutting said elongated strands as they are supplied by said extrusion step to convert them into pellets;
- immediately feeding said pellets without intermediate storage;
- continuously crystallizing said pellets, as they are fed in said feeding step from said cutting step, in a stream of hot gas of a desired temperature to heat the pellets to crystallizing temperature;
- and
- immediately feeding said pellets from a crystallizer following the continuous crystallizing, without intermediate storage, for solid state condensing said pellets under heat in a continuous flow after said crystallization step to reach a desired intrinsic viscosity.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.