Use of froth flotation to separate PVC/PET mixtures

Recycling is an important activity in the minimization of waste that results from human activities. The idea re-using this waste has increased during the last decades due to environmental, economics and social factors. In the United States, 75 billion pounds of plastic are produced every year. Unfortunately, the majority of this plastic ends up in landfills where its decomposition process can take anywhere from 10 to 30 years. The United States currently recycles about 5% of its post-consumer plastic waste; however, as much as 55% could be recycled if economically viable methods can be developed to collect and process waste streams that contain at least 50% thermoplastic materials. Froth flotation is the cheapest and most extensively used process for the separation of chemically similar minerals, and to concentrate ores for economical smelting. Flotation has a reduced cost compared to other separation operations. In this work, froth flotation was used to treat PVC and PET mixtures. The parameters studied are reagents, pH, conditioning time and particle size. The results show a yield of 99.3% pure PVC separated from PET.