JP2004191879A - Method and apparatus for treating discarded toner cartridge, solid fuel obtained by using discarded toner, and regenerated plastic material - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method of treating discarded toner cartridges by which toners remaining in discarded toner cartridges of various shapes are easily recovered without causing environmental pollution, whereby the following crushing and separation of the discarded cartridges are facilitated, and by which recovered discarded toners are taken out as cakes of a uniform shape free from burrs and can be utilized in other use. <P>SOLUTION: The method for treating discarded toner cartridges includes the steps of sucking and recovering residual toners from discarded toner cartridges, compression-molding and melt-solidifying the recovered residual toners, crushing the discarded cartridges from which the residual toners have been recovered, and separating the crushed material into at least metals and nonmetals. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO&NCIPI

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a toner cartridge used in a copier, a printer of an information processing apparatus, and the like, which is used or discarded for other reasons, and a method and an apparatus for processing residual toner.
Further, the present invention relates to a solid fuel and a re-plastic material made from residual toner obtained by the method and apparatus for treating a waste toner cartridge.
[0002]
[Prior art]
With the spread of electrophotographic copiers and printers, the toner used in them is stored in cartridges and incorporated into the copier, but when the toner is used up, the entire cartridge is discarded as a used toner cartridge. ing. The main part of this waste toner cartridge is plastic, and a metal member is attached to a part of the waste toner cartridge. When disposing the cartridge, the cartridge is crushed and then separated into a plastic part and a metal part. For the purpose of recycling various plastic products, the latter uses iron, aluminum, and copper scraps for recycling.
[0003]
In general, a waste toner cartridge usually remains in the inside thereof without completely using the toner.If the waste toner cartridge is crushed in this state, ultrafine toner scatters around and causes environmental pollution. It also has a negative effect on the human body.
[0004]
This type of toner has various compositions, and it is impossible to reuse the remaining toner as a toner, and there are many problems such as pollution problems in the processing at present. As a means of processing the residual toner without causing environmental and pollution problems, the residual toner sucked and collected from the waste toner cartridge is put into a pot of an appropriate size, and the pot is heated to melt the toner inside. Thereafter, it has been proposed to cool and solidify the mixture so that it can be easily treated as a waste toner solidified product in the secondary treatment.
[0005]
[Patent Document 1]
JP-A-7-140871
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
As described above, the residual toner remaining in the used toner cartridge is extremely difficult to handle because it scatters around when the cartridge is crushed, and must be sufficiently removed from the cartridge before the crushing process of the cartridge. .
[0007]
The above-described waste toner treatment method in which the residual toner collected by suction is accommodated in a plurality of small pots, melted, cooled, and taken out of the pot in a solidified state is effective in solidifying unwieldy waste toner into a lump. However, a large number of small pots that have been subjected to an inner surface treatment must be prepared so that the solidified toner can be easily taken out, which increases equipment costs.
[0008]
In addition, in the method using a small pot for solidification, burrs are formed on the upper peripheral edge of the solid toner when taken out of the pot, and the burrs are chipped off during transportation and subsequent handling, so that extra cleaning work is performed. Is forced. In order to obtain a solid toner having a uniform shape without burrs, it is necessary to press the upper surface of the residual toner in the pot with a pressing mold or the like before melting, and this also has a problem that the cost increases. Even when pressed with a pressing die, the shape of the solid matter, particularly the shape of the upper surface, often becomes irregular, and the occurrence of burrs on the upper edge after removal cannot be completely eliminated.
[0009]
According to the present invention, it is possible to easily recover the toner remaining in the waste toner cartridges of various shapes without causing environmental pollution. Therefore, it is easy to crush and separate the waste cartridge in the subsequent process. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method for treating a waste toner cartridge which can be taken out as a solid having a certain shape without any irregularity and used for other purposes.
[0010]
Another object of the present invention is to provide a low-cost waste toner cartridge processing apparatus which is useful for carrying out the above-mentioned method for processing a waste toner cartridge, enables all-process automatic operation, and can be used.
[0011]
Further, the present invention provides a solid fuel which is easy to handle and has a uniform shape and is made of the waste toner as a raw material, and a re-plastic material which becomes various plastic materials.
[0012]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
According to the present invention, a step of sucking and collecting residual toner from a waste toner cartridge, a step of compression-molding and melting and solidifying the collected residual toner, a step of crushing a waste cartridge after collecting residual toner, And a step of separating the waste toner cartridge into at least a metal and a non-metal.
[0013]
Further, according to the present invention, a perforation device for opening a toner suction hole and a gas inflow hole in a waste toner cartridge, a suction recovery device for suctioning residual toner in the waste toner cartridge from the toner suction hole, and A compression molding device for compressing and molding to a predetermined shape and sending it; a toner solidifying device for melting and solidifying the compression molded toner; and a residual amount of toner remaining from the suction / recovery device and received by the compression molding device. A toner supply device for supplying the waste toner cartridge, and a cartridge feeding device for intermittently moving the waste toner cartridge from the supply position of the waste toner cartridge to the take-out position of the waste toner cartridge via the punching device and the suction / recovery device. A waste toner cartridge processing device is provided.
[0014]
Further, according to the present invention, there is provided a fuel and a re-plasticized material in which the waste toner is compression-molded into a small mass having a predetermined shape, melted and cooled, and solidified.
[0015]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
The invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a process diagram of an entire processing facility using a processing apparatus for a waste toner cartridge according to an embodiment of the present invention. The overall flow will be described with reference to this figure. First, the package 1 of the collected waste toner cartridge is unpacked, and the defective waste toner cartridge 2 and the small lot cartridge and the non-defective waste toner cartridge 3 are viewed from the external appearance of the cartridge. To sort. Here, the defective cartridge 2 is a cartridge in which the outer shape of the cartridge is partially damaged and hinders the positioning and mounting of the cartridge on a cartridge mounting pallet described later, or a toner suction hole is formed on the upper surface of the cartridge. When drilling, it refers to such a thing that the automatic drilling operation does not go smoothly due to partial loss of the outer shell. A small lot cartridge is a small number of cartridges.
[0016]
The defective product waste toner cartridge and the small lot product cartridge are conveyed to a perforation / suction device 4 in a separate process, where the perforation and the suction and collection of the internal residual toner by a suction hose or the like are manually performed by an operator. Then, the residual toner (recovered toner) is sent to the automatic toner supply unit 6 of the waste toner cartridge processing apparatus according to the present invention via the dust collector 5. After the residual toner is sucked, the waste cartridge 7 is conveyed to the crusher 8 by the carrier trolley and the charging conveyor 71.
[0017]
The non-defective waste toner cartridge 3 is sent to a perforation / suction unit 9 (a perforation device and a suction device described later) of the waste toner cartridge processing device by an input conveyor, where automatic perforation and toner suction are performed. After being sucked into the automatic toner supply unit 6 via the dust collector 10, the waste cartridge 11 after suction is sent to the crusher 8 by a carry-out conveyor, a transport cart, and an input conveyor 71.
After unpacking, the package 1 of the waste toner cartridge is used as a recycled material 12 such as various packaging materials, cardboard materials, or styrene foam materials.
[0018]
The residual toner (recovered toner) is supplied from the toner supply unit 6 to a toner molding / solidification unit 13 (a compression molding device and a toner solidification device described later) of the waste toner cartridge processing device according to the present invention, where, for example, pellets are formed. It is taken out as a solid toner to be formed, and becomes the solid fuel 14 or the re-plastic material (raw material plastic) according to the present invention.
[0019]
The waste cartridge crushed by the crusher 8 is separated into metal and nonmetal by a magnetic separator 15 and other sorting means, and is recycled as a re-plastic material 16, iron scrap 17, aluminum scrap 18, and the like.
[0020]
FIG. 2 is a schematic overall plan view of a residual toner collecting unit in the waste toner cartridge processing device according to one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 3 is an overall side view of a cartridge punching device according to the present invention. Referring to FIG. 2, an intermittent pallet feeder 20 circulating in one direction and moving intermittently is provided, and a plurality of, in the illustrated example, eight cartridge mounting pallets 21 are provided on the feeder 20. Are placed at substantially equal intervals. Actually, the pallet 21 has moving devices 22 and 23 for feeding the pallet 21 in the vertical direction, and pallet transfer devices 24 and 25 for sending the pallet 21 to the intermittent feeding device 20 are provided. When the type of the waste toner cartridge to be applied changes, a pallet corresponding to this is used.
[0021]
The intermittent pallet feeding device 20 on the side opposite to the side where the punching device described later is located is a side for supplying and taking out the waste toner cartridge. For example, the waste toner cartridge 26 mounted and positioned on the pallet 21 at the position A in FIG. 3) is sent intermittently in the direction of the arrow in the figure together with the pallet 21. After the cartridge detecting means 70 (FIG. 3) determines the presence or absence of the cartridge and the correctness of the positioning at an intermediate position, for example, position B, the pallet is vertically fed The cartridge-mounted pallet 21 is transferred to the other pallet intermittent feeding device 20 by the supply-side pallet transfer device 24 at the end of the device 22.
[0022]
Subsequently, the cartridge mounting pallet 21 is provided with a pair of openings 28 and 29 on the upper surface on one side of the waste toner cartridge by the first punching device 27 disposed above the pallet intermittent feeding device 20. Further, the cartridge mounting pallet 21 is sent to the adjacent second punching device 30, and the second punching device 30 opens a pair of similar openings 31, 32 on the upper surface of the other side of the waste toner cartridge 26, In this state, it is sent to the subsequent suction device 33. Eventually, four holes 28 to 32 are formed on the waste toner cartridge. Of these, two outer holes 29 and 31 are gas inflow holes, for example, air, and two center holes are provided. 28 and 32 are toner suction holes. Reference numerals 34 and 35 denote feeders vertically and vertically (first and second laterally with respect to the pallet feed direction) of the first and second perforators. Further, in this embodiment, the four holes 28 to 32 are divided into two holes and are opened by two punching devices. However, in some cases, four holes are punched at a time by one punching device. Needless to say, this may be done.
[0023]
In the suction device 33, the suction hood 36 is lowered so as to cover the central two suction holes 28 and 32 of the waste toner cartridge, and the residual toner in the cartridge is suctioned by negative pressure. The waste cartridge 37 after suction is transferred to the intermittent pallet transfer device 20 on the opposite side by the take-out side pallet transfer device 25, and the toner has been suctioned at the position A where the waste toner cartridge is mounted or at the position C before the waste cartridge. The waste cartridge is taken out. Reference numeral 38 in the figure denotes a vertical feed device of the suction device 33. In the above description, two holes are formed in the upper surface on the central side of the waste toner cartridge, and the remaining toner is sucked through the two holes. Of course, one or many suction holes of a required size are provided. The hole may not be a circular hole, and may be a long hole.
[0024]
FIG. 4 and FIG. 5 are a detailed front view and an enlarged side view of the punching device schematically illustrated in FIG. FIG. 6 is an enlarged cross-sectional view for explaining the suction state of the residual toner by the suction device. Referring to FIGS. 4 and 5, the punching device support base 40 (not shown in FIG. 5) is provided with a cutter 42 and its rotary drive motor 43 together with a cutter 42 and a rotary drive motor 43 by a vertical drive motor 41 such as a servo motor shown in FIG. 39 (FIG. 3) can be moved up and down, thereby performing overall vertical positioning control. Further, the punching device support base 40 is moved in a horizontal direction with respect to the processing device base 39 by a horizontal drive motor 47 through a horizontal guide device 44 together with a vertical drive motor 41, a cutter 42 and a rotary drive motor 43. It is movable in a direction perpendicular to the pallet feed direction. A cartridge holding plate 45 is disposed below the punching device support base 40. The cartridge holding plate 45 is attached to a lower end of a piston rod of a pair of vertical driving cylinders 46 held on the support base 40.
[0025]
Referring to FIG. 5, a feed screw 48 is connected to an output shaft of the vertical drive motor 41, and a feed nut 49 screwed to the feed screw 48 is connected to a bracket 50 holding the rotary drive motor 43 of the cutter 42. ing. The bracket 50 can move up and down on the guide rail 51. Therefore, the rotation drive motor 43 is lowered by the operation of the feed screw 48 and the nut 49 by the operation of the vertical drive motor 41, and the pallet 21 is rotated by the rotation of the cutter 42. The suction holes 28 and 32 and the air inlet holes 29 and 31 described above are formed in the upper surface of the waste toner cartridge 26 above. At the time of the punching operation, the position signal of the waste toner cartridge 26 detected on the pallet intermittent feeding device, the presence / absence signal of the cartridge, and the like are sent to the servomotors of the punching devices 34 and 35. The position and the lateral position are controlled, and a perforating operation at a predetermined position corresponding to the type of the waste toner cartridge 26 is performed. During the punching operation, the above-described cartridge pressing plate 45 is lowered to press the upper surface of the waste toner cartridge 26 to fix the position of the cartridge 26.
[0026]
As shown in FIGS. 2 and 6, at the time of sucking the residual toner, the suction device 33 descends, and the suction hood 36 at the lower end of the suction tube approaches the upper surface of the cartridge so as to surround the two suction holes 28 and 32 together. I do. In this state, a dust collector (not shown) sucks and collects the internal residual toner 52 together with the internal air. Since external air flows into the cartridge from the air inflow holes 29 and 31 with the suction, an effective suction operation is performed without negative pressure inside the cartridge.
[0027]
In some cases, the residual toner 52 may remain so as to adhere to the bottom 26 a of the waste toner cartridge 26, particularly to the corners and wall surfaces of the bottom, and from the air inlet holes 29 and 31 to collect the residual toner 52 more completely. By forcibly pumping the external air, the residual toner 52 attached to the inner wall surface and the corner of the cartridge 26 is peeled off by the injection of the compressed air, and is stirred toward the suction holes 28 and 32 while stirring the inside of the cartridge. Because of the extruded form, a more effective suction operation is provided without increasing the suction force of the suction tube. In this case, the air inlet holes 29 and 31 are connected to an external air injection device via a pipe or the like.
[0028]
Further, since two suction holes 28 and 32 are formed, the residual toner 52 does not concentrate at one place, and does not adhere to or clog around the suction holes 28 and 32.
[0029]
After the end of the suction, the suction device 33 moves up, the pallet moves to the take-out position of the intermittent pallet feeding device 20, and the next waste toner cartridge is sequentially fed into the punching devices 27, 30 and the suction device 33. Then, the remaining toner suction process is automatically performed.
[0030]
Next, a toner supply device, a compression molding device, and a toner solidification device according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 7 is a schematic side view of a waste toner compression molding device and a toner solidifying device according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 8 is a plan view of FIG. A waste (collection) toner supply device 56 having a toner supply tank 54 and a supply chute 55 is provided above the end of the base 53, and the residual toner collected by the residual toner suction / recovery device 33 is stored in the toner supply tank 54. It is thrown.
[0031]
On the upper surface of the base, a compression molding device 57 is installed adjacent to the residual toner supply device 56. This compression molding device 57 has a plurality of lower dies 58 intermittently circulating in one direction on a circular orbit as shown in FIG. 8, and a plurality of upper dies 59 opposed thereto. The upper mold 59 is adapted to receive a predetermined amount of residual toner supplied from the supply chute 55 of the toner supply device 56, and moves up and down by, for example, a cam means. Completely compress the toner (collected toner).
[0032]
More specifically, at the position where the residual toner is supplied from the supply chute 55, the upper die 59 is at the maximum ascending position (toner supply side) with respect to the lower die 58, and from this position, the upper die is cammed. 59 gradually descends and gently presses the residual toner in the lower mold 58, compresses and forms the residual toner in the maximum descending state, and gradually ascends from this point to the maximum elevation 180 ° opposite to the toner supply position 56. At the position (discharge side), the compression-molded toner is discharged from the lower mold 58 onto the conveying device 60 and is sequentially fed to the toner solidifying device 63 described later. In this manner, scattering of the toner is prevented by the gentle upward and downward movement of the upper mold, accurate compression molding is performed, and a toner molded product having a constant shape is delivered. In one example, a columnar pellet-shaped toner molded product having an outer diameter of 5 cm and a height of 3 cm is obtained.
[0033]
The toner molded product is sent to the toner melting unit 61 of the subsequent toner solidifying device 63 while being placed on the transport device 60, where it is heated and melted to such an extent that the shape of the molded product does not collapse, and then cooled by air cooling or the like. It is sent to 62 and solidified, and is taken out as a solid toner.
[0034]
The obtained solid toner becomes a fuel and a re-plastic material. Various shapes such as a cylindrical pellet 65, a prism pellet 66 as shown in FIGS. 9A and 9B, or a flat rectangular parallelepiped 67 as shown in FIG. Can be produced. It is preferable that each of them is formed into a small lump that is easy to handle.
[0035]
The solid toner obtained by the residual toner processing apparatus according to the present invention can be used not only as a fuel but also as a re-plastic material, and is re-melted with other re-plastic materials to be recycled into various plastic products. It can also be used in many applications, such as molding into a smaller form and mixing it with civil engineering and construction-related materials. Since it is formed into a predetermined shape by a molding die before melting, the shape is constant, no burrs or the like appear on the edges thereof, and there is no fear that burrs may be lost during handling and cause contamination.
[0036]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to easily and accurately collect and process the residual toner in a waste toner cartridge which is difficult to handle without passing through special or complicated devices and processes, and greatly reduces environmental and pollution problems. Can contribute. Many uses are possible, such as using the solid toner after processing as it is as a solid fuel, using it as a mixture of other raw materials, or using it as a re-plastic material that can be easily subjected to secondary processing.
[0037]
Most of the waste toner cartridge processing apparatus according to the present invention is automated, and the manual operation of the worker is only about placing the waste toner cartridge on the pallet and removing the waste toner cartridge from the pallet. There is no worry about contamination due to splashing. The working environment in the crushing process of the waste cartridge after the collection of the residual toner is greatly improved, and various effects such as a great contribution to subsequent separation and recycling can be obtained.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a process diagram of an entire processing facility using a processing apparatus for a waste toner cartridge according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a schematic overall plan view of a residual toner collecting unit in the waste toner cartridge processing apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 3 is an overall side view of the cartridge punching device according to the present invention.
4 is a detailed front view of the punching device in FIG. 3 as viewed from a pallet feeding direction.
FIG. 5 is an enlarged side view of FIG. 4;
FIG. 6 is an enlarged cross-sectional view for explaining a state of suction of residual toner by the suction device according to the present invention.
FIG. 7 is a schematic side view of a residual toner compression molding device and a toner solidifying device according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 8 is a plan view of FIG. 7;
FIG. 9 is a perspective view showing various examples of the shape of the solid fuel obtained by the residual toner processing device of the present invention.
[Explanation of symbols]
REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 waste toner cartridge package 2 defective product waste toner cartridge 3 good product waste toner cartridge 5, 10 dust collector 6 automatic toner supply unit 8 crusher 9 perforation / suction unit 11 waste cartridge 13 after collecting residual toner 13 toner molding / solidifying unit 14 Solid fuel 15 Magnetic separator 16 Re-plastic material

Claims (8)

Suctioning and collecting the residual toner from the waste toner cartridge;
A step of compression-molding the collected residual toner and melting and solidifying it;
Crushing the waste cartridge after collecting the residual toner,
Separating the crushed material into at least metal and non-metal. The step of sucking and collecting the residual toner from the waste toner cartridge includes opening a toner suction hole and a gas inflow hole in the waste toner cartridge, sucking the residual toner from the toner suction hole, and simultaneously removing the toner inside the cartridge from the gas inflow hole. 2. The method for treating a waste toner cartridge according to claim 1, further comprising a step of forcibly sending gas to the waste toner cartridge. A punching device for opening a toner suction hole and a gas inlet hole in a waste toner cartridge,
A suction and recovery device that suctions residual toner in the waste toner cartridge from the toner suction hole,
A compression molding apparatus for compressively molding the residual toner into a predetermined shape and sending it out,
A toner solidifying device for melting and solidifying the compression-molded molded toner,
A toner supply device that receives the residual toner from the suction and recovery device and supplies the remaining toner to the compression molding device in a fixed amount;
A waste toner cartridge that intermittently moves the waste toner cartridge from the supply position of the waste toner cartridge to the take-out position of the waste toner cartridge via the punching device and the suction / recovery device. Cartridge processing device. The cartridge feeder has a means for detecting and positioning a waste toner cartridge of various shapes on the feeder, and the punching device adjusts a punching position by a signal from the positioning and position detecting means. 4. The residual toner cartridge processing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the suction and recovery device is movable so that a suction port is aligned with the perforation position. 4. The waste toner cartridge processing device according to claim 3, wherein the compression molding device has a plurality of open / close molding dies that circulate between a waste toner receiving position and the molded toner discharge position. The toner solidifying device, a melting portion of the molded toner, a cooling portion, and a conveying unit that conveys the molded toner discharged from the compression molding device from the melting portion to the solid toner outlet through the cooling portion. The waste toner cartridge processing apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising: A solid fuel in which waste toner is compression-molded into small blocks of a certain shape, melted, cooled, and solidified. A re-plastic material made by compressing waste toner into small lumps of a certain shape, melting, cooling, and solidifying.

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