Selective flotation separation of plastics by particle control

In this paper, the characteristics of plastics particles in the cutting pro ducts and flotation behaviours of plastics were studied. On this basis, the relation of floatability of plastics with surface chemical related factor and gravity factors was derived and discussed. From the results, it was sho wn that plastics flotation is dominated not only by surface chemical factor s, but also significantly by gravity factors. It is suggested that plastics flotation is a combination of froth flotation and gravity separation. Acco rding to this relation, the idea of particle control was first applied for the separation of plastics mixture. From the separation results, it can be seen that this method can greatly increase the separation efficiency for fl otation separation of plastics mixture. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.