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Jig separation of crushed plastics: the effects of particle geometry on separation efficiency

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Abstract

Secondary resources (i.e., wastes) contain a wide variety of materials (e.g., plastics, metals, and wood) of various sizes and shapes that complicate separation especially when using gravity-based separation techniques. In this study, the effects of particle geometry (i.e., size and shape) on jig separation of crushed plastics were investigated. Plastic boards with 2-mm and 3-mm thicknesses of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS, specific gravity (SG) = 1.03) and polystyrene (PS, SG = 1.06) were crushed to obtain a size fraction of + 2.0–8.0 mm. The shape distribution in each size fraction (+ 2.0–2.8, + 2.8–4.0, + 4.0–5.6, and + 5.6–8.0 mm) showed the strong effects of crushing on particle shape; that is, particles are more disk-like at coarser size fraction but becomes more sphere-like at finer size fraction. Settling velocity of sphere-like PS increased with increasing particle size while those of disk-like ABS had similar values regardless of the size, which were consistent with the results of jig separation of single-type plastics. The results of jig separation of mixed-type plastics showed that separation efficiency was higher for the mixture of light, disk-like particles (ABS) and heavy, sphere-like particles (PS).

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable inputs to this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Sustainable Resources Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Kita 13, Nishi 8, Kita-ku, Sapporo, 060-8628, Japan

    Theerayut Phengsaart & Arisa Azuma

  2. Division of Sustainable Resources Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Kita 13, Nishi 8, Kita-ku, Sapporo, 060-8628, Japan

    Mayumi Ito, Carlito Baltazar Tabelin & Naoki Hiroyoshi

  3. School of Minerals and Energy Resources Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia

    Carlito Baltazar Tabelin

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  1. Theerayut Phengsaart
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Phengsaart, T., Ito, M., Azuma, A. et al. Jig separation of crushed plastics: the effects of particle geometry on separation efficiency. J Mater Cycles Waste Manag 22, 787–800 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10163-019-00967-6

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