Electrostatic Charging Measurement and PVC Separation of Triboeletrostatically Charged Plastic Particles using a Fluidized Bed Tribocharger

A particle flow visualization, electrostatic charging measurement and separation of triboelectrically charged particles in the external electric field by a fluidized bed tribocharger are conducted for the removal of PVC particles from mixed waste plastics. The laboratory-scale triboelectrostatic separation system consists of the fluidized bed tribocharger, a separation chamber, a collection chamber and a controller. PVC and PET particles can be imparted negative and positive surface charges respectively due to the difference of triboelectric charging series between particles and particles in the fluidized bed tribocharger, and can be separated by passing them through an external electric field. To visualize these charged particles, He-Ne laser is used with cylindrical lenses to generate a sheet beam. In the charging measurement, the particle motion analysis system (PMAS), capable of determining particle velocity and diameter. is used to non-intrusively measure particle behavior in high strength electric field. The average charge-to-mass ratios of PVC and PET particles are $1.4\;and\;1.2{\mu}C/kg$, respectively. The highly concentrated PVC (91.9%) can be recovered with a yield of about 96.1% from the mixture of PVC and PET materials for a single-stage processing. The triboelectrostatic separation system using the fluidized tribocharger shows the potential to be an effective method for removing PVC from mixed plastics for waste plastic recycling.