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US 8,986,582 B2Granted
Compartmentalized pellet for improved contaminant removal
AssigneeM&G USA Corporation
InventorsDelane Nagel Richardson, Edwin A. Sisson, Rebecca Spooner Korwin
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Abstract
This invention is to an improved method for cleaning contaminated polymer when that polymer is to be blended with clean material. The method involves combining the contaminated material and the clean material in a compartmentalized pellet wherein the contaminated material is placed in the outermost compartment, the clean material is placed in an inner compartment and then subjecting the pellet to an extraction process.
Claims9
A method of purifying postconsumer polyester comprising:
- cleaning comminuted pieces of postconsumer polyester to remove surface contaminants therefrom thereby producing surface cleaned postconsumer polyester pieces;
- melting the surface-cleaned postconsumer polyester pieces to produce a postconsumer polyester melt;
- extruding the postconsumer polyester melt to reduce the intrinsic viscosity of the postconsumer polyester melt;
- forming a compartmentalized strand comprised of at least an outer compartment and an inner compartment wherein the outer compartment is next to air and is comprised of the postconsumer polyester melt and the inner compartment is comprised of a virgin polyester melt;
- solidifying and pelletizing the compartmentalized strand to make solid compartmentalized pellets;
- and
- extracting contaminants from the solid compartmentalized pellets.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.