Hollow Aluminum Particle in Eddy Current Separation of Recovering Waste Toner Cartridges

Abundant waste toner cartridges have been generated from the use of printers. They contain aluminum, plastic, steel, and toner. Waste toner cartridges will pollute the environment if they are not properly treated. An environment-friendly recovery line of waste toner cartridges had been constructed in our previous work. Eddy current separation was employed to separate aluminum particles from plastic particles of crushed waste toner cartridges. However, hollow aluminum particles existed in crushed waste toner cartridges, and they have a rather low separation rate from plastic particles. There was little information about hollow aluminum particles in eddy current separation. For improvement of the efficiency of eddy current separation, models of eddy current force and movement behaviors of hollow aluminum particles in eddy current separation were established. In a comparison of horizontal throws of hollow aluminum particles to solid aluminum particles, we found hollow characters greatly decreased the horizon...