Advanced manufacturing system to recycle carpet
AssigneeXt Green, Inc.
InventorsXinting Tian, Gail Brice, Lorence Moot, Frank Lu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An advanced manufacturing plant and process to efficiently deconstruct and recycle post-consumer carpet primarily in an aqueous environment. The water-based technology substantially eliminates airborne particulate emissions into the workplace and the environment. It also significantly increases the quality and quantity of the resources recovered from the carpet. In addition to recycling residential carpet, it also reclaims and recycles material from commercial broadloom carpet.
Claims20
A carpet recycling plant for separating nylon fibers, polypropylene fibers and calcium carbonate from post-consumer carpet, the plant comprising:
- the post-consumer carpet having nylon fibers, polypropylene fibers and calcium carbonate;
- an air controlled room which provides additional control of airborne particulates;
- a shredder for gross size reduction of the post-consumer carpet in a dry state to a size between 2″×2″ to 12″×12″ defining a gross size reduced carpet, the shredder located within the air controlled room to capture the airborne particulates emitted from gross size reduced carpet processed through the shredder;
- an air exhaust of the air controlled room in fluid communication with a water based pulper to capture the particulates from the shredder and air controlled room and transfer the particulates to the water based pulper;
- the water based pulper filled with water which receives the gross size reduced carpet and the captured particulates to create a carpet slurry and further break down the gross sized reduced carpet into mixed fibers of the nylon fibers and polypropylene fibers to enable removal of calcium carbonate/SBR latex nodules defining ash to form a slurry of the mixed fibers and the ash;
- a water based refiner in fluid communication with the water based pulper to cut the mixed fibers in the slurry outputted from the pulper to a length sufficiently short to allow for separation of the mixed fibers in a multistage centrifuge;
- the multi-stage centrifuge receiving the sufficiently short carpet fiber slurry from the water based refiner;
- wherein after the gross size reduced carpet and before any further size reduction of the gross size reduced carpet, the captured particulates enter the pulper and the mixed fiber and the particulates remain wet until at least after the calcium carbonate is removed for recycling prior to the centrifuge and the mixed fiber are separated through the multi-stage centrifuge.
A process of recycling carpet to separate nylon fibers, polypropylene fibers and calcium carbonate from a carpet, the process comprising the steps of:
- receiving the carpet in an air controlled room;
- introducing the carpet into a shredder which is located in the air controlled room to produce gross size reduced carpet having a size between 2″×2″ and 12″×12″ in a dry state;
- trapping airborne particulates emitted from the shredder within the air controlled room;
- transferring the trapped particulates from the air controlled room to a wet pulper which is located outside of the air controlled room;
- transferring the gross size reduced carpet and the airborne particulates outputted from the shredder into the wet pulper;
- maintaining the airborne particulates and the gross size reduced carpet in a slurried wet state until at least after the calcium carbonate contained in the carpet is separated from the nylon and polypropelene fibers and the nylon and the polypropelene carpet fibers are separated by being processed through a centrifuge.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.