Systems and methods for manufacturing bulked continuous filament
AssigneeMohawk Industries, Inc.
InventorThomas Clark
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of manufacturing bulked continuous carpet filament which, in various embodiments, comprises: (A) grinding recycled PET bottles into a group of flakes; (B) washing the flakes; (C) identifying and removing impurities, including impure flakes, from the group of flakes; (D) passing the group of flakes through an MRS extruder while maintaining the pressure within the MRS portion of the MRS extruder below about 1.5 millibars; (E) passing the resulting polymer melt through at least one filter having a micron rating of less than about 50 microns; and (F) forming the recycled polymer into bulked continuous carpet filament that consists essentially of recycled PET.
Claims17
A method of manufacturing bulked continuous carpet filament, said method comprising:
- (A) providing a multi-screw extruder that comprises:
- (i) a first satellite screw extruder, said first satellite screw extruder comprising a first satellite screw that is mounted to rotate about a central axis of said first satellite screw;
- (ii) a second satellite screw extruder, said second satellite screw extruder comprising a second satellite screw that is mounted to rotate about a central axis of said second satellite screw;
- and
- (iii) a pressure regulation system that is adapted to maintain a pressure within said first and second satellite screw extruders between about 0 millibars and about 1.8 millibars;
- (B) using said pressure regulation system to reduce a pressure within said first and second satellite screw extruders to between about 0 millibars and about 1.8 millibars;
- (C) while maintaining said pressure within said first and second satellite screw extruders between about 0 millibars and about 1.8 millibars, passing a melt comprising recycled polymer through said multi-screw extruder so that:
- (1) a first portion of said melt passes through said first satellite screw extruder, and (2) a second portion of said melt passes through said second satellite screw extruder;
- and
- (D) after said step of passing said melt of recycled polymer through said multi-screw extruder, forming said recycled polymer into bulked continuous carpet filament.
A method of manufacturing carpet filament comprising the steps of:
- (A) washing a group of polymer flakes to remove at least a portion of one or more contaminants from a surface of said flakes, said group of flakes comprising a first plurality of flakes that consist essentially of PET and a second plurality of flakes that do not consist essentially of PET;
- (B) after said step of washing said first plurality of flakes:
- (i) scanning said washed group of flakes to identify said second plurality of flakes,
- (ii) separating said second plurality of flakes from said first plurality of flakes;
- (C) melting said second plurality of flakes to produce a polymer melt;
- (D) providing an extruder that extrudes material in a plurality of different extrusion streams;
- (E) reducing a pressure within said extruder to between about 0 millibars and about 1.5 millibars;
- (F) while maintaining said pressure within said extruder between about 0 millibars and about 1.5 millibars, passing said polymer melt through said extruder so that said polymer melt is divided into a plurality of extrusion streams, each having a pressure between about 0 millibars and about 1.5 millibars;
- (G) after passing said polymer melt through said extruder, filtering said polymer melt through at least one filter;
- and
- (H) after passing said polymer melt through said filter, forming said recycled polymer into bulked continuous carpet filament.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.