Method for progressive separation and extraction of raw materials from residential roofing products

A method of progressively separating and extracting raw materials from residential roofing products, the method comprising:

• a) mechanically shredding residential roofing products to dislodge granules to produce shredded strip products,
• b) mechanically reducing the size of the shredded strip products to produce chip products;
• c) screening the chip products from step (b) to separate the chip products from granules by size, resulting in chip products and small products, wherein the chip products are comprised of asphalt-coated fiberglass chips and middle sized asphalt coated limestone powder, and the small products are comprised of small sized granules and small sized asphalt coated limestone powder;
• d) mechanically reducing the size of the asphalt coated fiberglass chips and middle sized asphalt coated limestone powder from step (c) to produce small sized powder products,
• e) separating both the small sized granules and small sized powder product by density separation in a dry medium using air fluidization, comprising the following steps:
• i. separating the small sized granules, harvested during the shredding of step (a) and the chip process of step (c), from the powder of steps (c) and (d) by density, wherein the density separation results in the formation of reusable clean granules and asphalt coated limestone powder, and
• ii. separating the small sized powder products from remaining granules by density, wherein the density separation results in the formation of reusable clean granules and asphalt coated limestone powder,
• f) screening the asphalt coated limestone powder chip products by size into medium aggregate and small aggregate products, wherein the medium aggregate products are comprised of asphalt-coated fiberglass chips and powder and the small aggregate products are comprised of asphalt coated limestone powder;
• g) mechanically reducing the size of the medium asphalt-coated limestone and fiberglass chips to produce small sized powder products,
• h) finishing the resulting product by further size screening producing small aggregate products comprised of asphalt coated limestone powder, and
• i) beneficiating the small aggregate products to remove deleterious elements and then mechanically reducing the small aggregate products to ultrafine size less than about 300 microns.