Abstract

The purpose of this research is to develop a device that can continuously supply PTFE fine powder. Although PTFE is used in a wide range of fields due to its excellent chemical, mechanical and electrical properties, it is difficult to continuously feed non-granulated PTFE powder due to its low flowability. Some of the authors had developed a device that enables highly accurate automatic quantitative feeding of PTFE fine powder in the previous paper. In the present report, the authors have developed a device for supplemental feeding to the hopper of the highly accurate automatic feeding device. The new feeding device is designed so as to lift powder by a movable bottom plate of a straight hopper and to push out the lifted powder by scraping. By adjusting the lifting height based on the difference in bulk density by position of the powder from the top to the bottom in the hopper, the system is able to continuously feed the powder with an accuracy of ±1 g. The proposed method which is composed of lifting up and scraping motions works well for initial feed of 15g and 33 times feeds of 3g. No agglomeration is observed in the supplied powder by the feeder.