Study on a novel pneumatic stratified vibration sorting method of waste plastic films

Waste plastic films introduce serious pollution and need to be separated and collected for recycling. Aiming at highly efficient sorting of waste plastic films, a kind of novel pneumatic stratified vibration sorting method of waste plastic films is proposed combining with the characteristics of pneumatic sorting and linear reciprocating vibration mechanism. The kinematic model of waste plastic films on the vibrating bed is established to study the kinematic characteristics of waste plastic films in the separating process. The effects of the directional angle of the vibration, the inclined angle of the vibration bed, the crank, the air speed, the critical rotational speed of the motor, and motion parameters on sliding trajectories of waste plastic films on the stratified vibration bed have been analyzed. Then, the optimum process parameters are determined. Based on the analyses, the prototype has been designed. The virtual prototype is created and simulated by software ADAMS. The results have verified the theoretical analyses. It shows the introduced pneumatic stratified vibration sorting method has a higher efficiency than conventionally compound sorting methods.