Experimental investigation of an electrostatic adhesion device used for metal/polymer granular mixture sorting

Electrostatic adhesion (EA) technique have been used recently for the electrostatic sorting of metal/polymer granular material mixture. The action seat on the materials is an EA actuator composed of an interposed elec-trodes network covered by a dielectric barrier and powered by polyphase voltages. The sorting principle consists of attaching the metal particles by EA, and of moving the polymer particles larger than 500 jim, mainly by gravity and vibration. The purpose of this paper is to optimize the EA mechanism for electrostatic sorting. The first part consists of evaluating the behavior of materials (Cu, PE, and PVC) on the EA actuator surface using a 180 degrees-rotating system. The results showed that the metal attaches to the actuator surface while the polymer does not; they also indicate the optimal factors contributing to the adhesion process. In the second part related to sorting application, the granular materials behavior and the influencing factors are explored in an inclined vibrating system to pro-cess a Cu/PVC mixture. For an inclination of 10 degrees, Cu recovery on the actuator exceeds 98% with a purity of about 99%. (c) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study utilized electrostatic adhesion (EA) technique for sorting metal/polymer granular material mixture, optimizing the EA mechanism through material behavior evaluation on EA actuator surface and exploration of granular materials behavior in an inclined vibrating system. The results showed high metal recovery rate and purity using this method.