Abstract
Almost every object around us is made out of plastic. Most plastic products consist of several types of plastic materials. Therefore, each type of plastics has to be separated before they could be recycled. Since some plastics have similar physical properties, their separation process is very difficult. To solve this issue, an electrostatic separation machine had been developed. The separation principle behind this machine is based on the differences in coulomb forces acting on those plastic granules after triboelectric charging. In this paper, results from experimental and theoretical separation studies that were performed on mixed ABS and PS plastic granules is presented. The influences of granule charges by triboelectric charging on separation efficiency were also examined.
