The hydraulic separator Multidune: Preliminary tests on fluid-dynamic features and plastic separation feasibility

Recycling of plastic materials is a rapidly developing discipline because of environmental awareness, the need to conserve materials and energy, and the growing demand to increase the production economy. The main problem in plastics recovery and recycling is related to the variety of plastic wastes, even if selective collection occurs. Therefore, plastic materials call be recycled either as mixtures or as single types, separating the different typologies by their physical (size, specific mass, etc.) and/or chemical properties. However, separation of plastics in single typologies by traditional processes and devices is difficult due to their typical low variability in properties. This paper presents a new research development for recycling industry: the Multidune separator. This is a device constructed from a sequence of parallel semi-cylindrical tubes of transparent plastic welded together in a plane. The lower half is shifted laterally and then fixed relative to the upper half. Flow is then induced in the lateral direction normal to the axis of the tubes, creating a main flow channel 3 and two recirculation zones. This apparatus creates a differential transport of particles of low specific mass, near to 1 g/cm(3), allowing their separation. The flow field in the Multidune separator is studied via Particle Tracking Velocimetry (PTV). Eulerian analysis of the data is performed to gather information about the fluid-dynamics features established by different hydraulic heads at the inlet of the Multidune. Preliminary tests on monomaterial samples have been performed, varying several operative parameters to determine the best set of values. Therefore, separation tests have been executed oil composite samples, obtaining satisfactory results in terms of plastic separation feasibility. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.