JP4105151B2 - Waste toner processing method - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a method for processing waste toner collected from a copying apparatus or a printer, or waste toner generated in a toner manufacturing factory. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method for pretreating waste toner and processing it safely and efficiently.

  The toner is a powdery ink used in an image forming apparatus using electrophotography, and generally includes a thermoplastic resin as a base material to which a binder and a colorant are added. The toner melts by heating, adheres to the paper, and solidifies by being cooled. As the toner, there are a toner used for the one-component developing method and a toner used for the two-component developing method. The former toner is obtained by adding a fine powder of iron oxide as a magnetic material to a thermoplastic resin, and is mainly used as a black toner. The latter toner is a mixture of a colorant and several additives in a thermoplastic resin, and is mainly used as a color toner. These toners are ultrafine particles having a particle diameter of several to several tens of microns (μm).

  With the recent spread of OA equipment, the amount of toner used is rapidly increasing. Since the toner is very small particles as described above, it is easy to scatter, and there is a report that the toner explodes due to static electricity. For example, when waste toner is put into a waste treatment furnace and incinerated, the waste toner flies as dust, resulting in a very bad working environment. Further, there is a risk of explosion due to static electricity generated by rubbing between waste toners. Therefore, it is an urgent issue to establish a method for safely and efficiently processing the collected waste toner.

  For example, Patent Document 1 proposes a waste toner processing method. This document 1 includes a heat treatment melting process for liquefying waste toner, a cooling process for cooling and solidifying the liquefied waste toner, and a crushing process for crushing the solidified waste toner, and a processing method for performing these processes continuously. Is disclosed. Further, Patent Document 2 uses a dust recycling system in a steel mill to add waste toner to slurry-like dust and dehydrate to produce mixed dust. We propose a method to effectively use waste toner by sintering this mixed dust. Patent Document 3 proposes a method for effectively utilizing waste toner by mixing waste toner with a sintering material of an ironworks and sintering it with a sintering machine.

JP-A-5-64780 JP 2000-328144 A JP 2002-69538 A

  However, in the processing method proposed in Patent Document 1, waste toner is liquefied and cooled and solidified. A large amount of heat is required to liquefy the toner, and the formed product obtained by cooling and solidifying the toner becomes strong. Such a formed product is difficult to be incinerated, and a large cost is required to incinerate. In addition, landfill treatment of this formation is problematic from the viewpoint of securing land and protecting the environment.

  The processing methods disclosed in Patent Document 2 and Patent Document 3 process waste toner using a steel mill line, and are excellent in that waste toner is used. However, these techniques are techniques for mixing waste toner with slurry generated at an ironworks and processing it. Therefore, a large facility is required as a premise, and only waste toner cannot be processed efficiently. Furthermore, in the processing methods of Patent Document 2 and Patent Document 3, the above-described countermeasure for explosiveness of waste toner has not been studied.

  Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above-described conventional problems, and proposes a method for efficiently and safely processing waste toner.

The above object is red toner of the waste toner, black toner and yellow toner is heated by a hot air of 160 to 220 ° C., the red toner, a black toner and to the temperature of the yellow toner becomes 95 ° C. below 75 ° C. or higher This is achieved by a waste toner processing method in which after pre-solidifying while adjusting, the waste is incinerated in a waste processing furnace. According to the present invention, by performing the pretreatment, the red toner, the black toner, and the yellow toner among the waste toners are agglomerated and solidified easily by heating. Since these red toner, black toner, and yellow toner are incinerated, waste toner can be processed safely and efficiently without generating dust.

Further, the above-mentioned object is to perform a pretreatment for heating the blue toner of waste toner using hot air of 160 to 220 ° C. and adjusting the temperature of the blue toner to 85 ° C. or more and 95 ° C. or less. Thereafter, the waste toner can be incinerated in a waste treatment furnace.

  Further, when the waste toner after the pretreatment is crushed into a lump and then put into the waste treatment furnace, the waste toner can be processed more efficiently. Further, moisture may be added in the pretreatment.

  As described above, according to the waste toner processing method of the present invention, waste toner can be processed efficiently and safely.

  Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a waste toner processing process according to the embodiment. In the waste toner processing method of the present invention, the waste toner that becomes dust and may explode further is pretreated to change to a coagulated and solidified form that is easy to handle. Then, the waste toner is safely and efficiently processed by incineration in a waste processing furnace. The waste toner processing steps will be described in order with reference to FIG. In general, waste toner is collected and collected in a bag-like flexible container, or a container such as a cardboard or drum.

  The waste toner stored in the container is received (S101). A heat treatment is performed as a pretreatment while the waste toner is stored in the container (S102). When the waste toner is heated under predetermined conditions described later, it can be agglomerated and solidified. Since the heat treatment is performed in the state of being stored in the container, the problem of explosion due to dust or static electricity can be avoided. In this step 102, waste toner is processed using hot air of 160 to 220 ° C., for example. At this time, the temperature of the waste toner is adjusted to 75 to 105 ° C., more preferably 80 to 100 ° C. The temperature of the waste toner is managed by appropriately adjusting the amount of hot air fed and the hot air supply time. By the processing in step 102, the resin material as the base material is agglomerated and solidified. The heat treatment as the pretreatment is not intended to heat the waste toner until it becomes liquid, but is formed into a granular or lump shape that can agglomerate the waste toner and suppress scattering.

  Note that moisture may be added to the hot air. When the waste toner is heat-treated by adding moisture, it is possible to prevent dangers such as scattering of fine powder or explosion of coal dust. Further, the process of step 102 may be performed using high-temperature steam instead of the hot air. Similar to the above, it is possible to prevent dangers such as scattering of fine powder or explosion of coal dust.

  FIG. 2 is a diagram collectively showing the relationship between the waste toner and the heating temperature confirmed by the inventors of the present application. Blue toner tends to be hard to aggregate and solidify. When the blue toner is held at 85 ° C. for 1 hour, partial aggregation is observed, and an effect for dust suppression is recognized. When the blue toner is held at 85 ° C. for 3 hours, the blue toner is surely aggregated and the volume is reduced (reduced) to about ½. Therefore, a sufficient dust suppression effect can be expected.

  At 65 ° C., which is a lower temperature, no change is observed in any of the blue toner, the red toner, and the black toner. The blue toner does not change even at 75 ° C. However, when the red toner and the black toner are held at 75 ° C. for 1 hour, partial aggregation is observed, and an effect for suppressing dust is recognized. Further, when the red toner and the black toner are held at 75 ° C. for 3 hours, they are surely aggregated and solidified. Therefore, with respect to the red toner and the black toner, a sufficient dust suppressing effect can be expected from 75 ° C. Although FIG. 2 shows blue toner, red toner, and black toner, yellow toner shows the same tendency as red toner and black toner.

On the other hand, when the temperature exceeds 105 ° C. on the high temperature side, all of the blue toner, the red toner, and the black toner are sintered and the volume is reduced to ½. Similarly, although there is a dust suppressing effect, when sintered, toner particles , that is, blue toner, red toner, black toner, and yellow toner particles are firmly bonded, so that the incineration efficiency is lowered. Therefore, it is preferable to incinerate the toner and then incinerate it. However, since the sintered toner is hard, it takes time to crush. Therefore, as described above, it is desirable that the waste toner temperature is set to 75 ° C. to less than 105 ° C., more preferably 80 ° C. to 100 ° C. for aggregation and solidification.

  Reference is again made to FIG. The waste toner for which the pre-processing in step 102 has been completed is taken out (S103), and the aggregated and solidified waste toner is crushed (S104). The crushing process in step 104 may be performed together with the container. For example, using a power shovel, the waste toner is lumped by being crushed in a state of being stored in a container. By crushing the aggregated and solidified waste toner into a lump, the surface area is increased, so that it can be efficiently incinerated in a subsequent waste incinerator. In the final step 105, the lump waste toner is put into a waste treatment furnace and incinerated. When thrown into the waste processing furnace, the waste toner is agglomerated so that it does not scatter and generate dust. In addition, since the toner is agglomerated, generation of static electricity can be suppressed.

  As described above, in the method according to the present invention, the waste toner is incinerated after being changed to a form that is easy to handle by heat treatment, so that the waste toner can be processed safely and efficiently without generating dust.

  FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of equipment to which the present invention is applied. In the facility shown in FIG. 3, 200 ° C. heated air is supplied to the existing incinerator 10. The heated air is obtained by supplying steam (not shown) to the erotic fin heater 11 and heating the room temperature air to raise the temperature.

  An agglomeration and solidification chamber 20 for aggregating waste toner is added to the above equipment. A part of the heated air is supplied to the coagulation solidification chamber 20. A pallet 21 for holding a container 22 containing waste toner T is prepared in the coagulation / solidification chamber 20. In the state where the container 22 is placed on the pallet 21, the heat treatment conditions for heating the waste toner T by raising the temperature of the coagulation solidification chamber 20 are as described above.

  The waste toner T that has been subjected to the heat treatment in the coagulation and solidification chamber 20 is, for example, drawn out to a crushing treatment place and crushed together with the container 22 by a power shovel or the like. When the container 22 is broken, the waste toner T is exposed, but dust does not fly because it is agglomerated and solidified. By this crushing process, the waste toner T is made into a lump like a baseball, for example. Thereafter, the waste toner T is put into a high temperature waste treatment furnace 25. At this time, fragments of the container 22 may be put together. The waste toner T to be input is not sintered and has a size that can be easily incinerated by crushing. Therefore, the waste toner T is efficiently incinerated by the waste treatment furnace 25. Since the base material of the waste toner T is a resin mainly composed of carbon, it functions as a reducing agent in the incineration process and also serves as a heat source. Therefore, the waste toner T is efficiently incinerated in the waste treatment furnace 25. Incinerated ash contains iron powder, which can be recycled.

  The preferred embodiment of the present invention has been described in detail above. However, the present invention is not limited to the specific embodiment, and various modifications can be made within the scope of the gist of the present invention described in the claims. Deformation / change is possible.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a waste toner processing step according to an example. FIG. 5 is a diagram collectively showing the relationship between waste toner and heating temperature. It is the figure shown about an example of the equipment to which this invention is applied.

Explanation of symbols

20 Coagulation solidification chamber 21 Pallet 22 Container 25 Waste treatment furnace T Toner

Claims (4)

Red toner of the waste toner, black toner and yellow toner is heated by a hot air of 160 to 220 ° C., the red toner, while adjusting the temperature of the black toner and yellow toner to be less than 95 ° C. 75 ° C. or higher A waste toner processing method, comprising: pretreating solidification and then incineration in a waste treatment furnace. The blue toner of the waste toner is heated by a hot air of 160 to 220 ° C., after the pretreatment of solidified while adjusting the temperature of the blue toner to be less than 95 ° C. 85 ° C. or higher, waste The waste toner processing method according to claim 1, wherein the waste toner is incinerated in a processing furnace.   The waste toner processing method according to claim 1, wherein the waste toner after the pretreatment is crushed into a lump and then put into the waste treatment furnace.   The waste toner processing method according to claim 1, wherein moisture is added in the pretreatment.

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