A novel tribo-electrostatic device for the treatment of granular waste plastics mixtures

ABSTRACT

The main objective of this work is the design, manufacture and functional validation of a tribo-electrostatic separator for granular mixtures, equipped with a grounded metal-belt conveyor electrode. Triboelectric charging of the materials was done using a rotary tubular device. The separation experiments were performed on a granular mixture composed of three different plastic materials polycarbonate, high-density polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride. The particles previously charged were deposited on the metal-belt conveyor that carried them through the separation region. The results obtained have shown the efficiency of this installation, which is useful for the treatment of mixtures composed of three different plastic materials.

KEYWORDS:

• Electrostatic separation
• recycling
• triboelectricity
• plastics wastes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.