JPH081101A - Sorting method for raw material of plastic container and apparatus therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To automatically discriminate the types of raw material of plastic container wastes, sort and pulverize the plastic container wastes based on the obtained command signals, and recover and re-use the sorted and pulverized wastes as various types of raw materials. CONSTITUTION:The types of raw materials of plastic containers being transported by a conveyer 2 are discriminated by an infrared ray spectrometer 3 and based on the obtained instruction signals, each automatic sorting apparatus 4 is driven, respective pulverizing apparatuses 5 are selected, the plastic containers are pulverized by the apparatuses 5, and the pulverized pieces are accumulated in respective silos based on the types of the raw materials.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for sorting waste plastic containers, such as plastic bottles and trays, which are collected by municipalities for reuse.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When reusing a waste plastic container, it is first necessary to select various waste plastic containers according to their raw materials. Conventionally, this sorting work has been performed manually by the marks and labels indicating the raw materials attached to the waste plastic containers, the appearance (shape, color, etc.) of the containers.

[0003]

In the conventional manual selection method based on the type of raw material of the plastic container, the selection work requires a lot of manual labor and time. In addition, reuse may be difficult due to mixing of different raw materials due to manual selection error. It is an object of the present invention to reduce the labor and time required for sorting and automatically eliminate sorting errors by automatically determining the type of raw material for waste plastic containers.

[0004]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, a method for selecting a material for a plastic container according to the present invention uses an infrared spectroscope to determine the type of the material for the plastic container being transferred by a conveyor such as a belt. In this method, an automatic sorter provided at least at one or more places in the traveling direction of the conveyor is operated in response to a command signal from the infrared spectroscope to select a plastic container according to the type of raw material.

Another method is to crush a plastic container by a crusher selected by the operation of each automatic sorting machine and accumulate the crushed pieces of the plastic container in a silo.

The plastic container raw material sorting apparatus of the present invention comprises a conveyor such as a belt for transferring the plastic container, and an infrared spectroscope provided outside the conveyor for discriminating the kind of the raw material of the plastic container being transferred. An automatic sorting machine which is provided at least at one or more places in the traveling direction of the conveyor and operates according to a command signal of the infrared spectroscope; a crusher for a plastic container selected by the operation of the automatic sorting machine; and the crushing machine. It consists of a silo that accumulates crushed pieces of crushed plastic containers.

[0007]

The kind of raw material of the plastic container being transferred by the conveyor such as a belt is discriminated by the infrared spectroscope, and the automatic sorting machine provided at least at one or more places in the traveling direction of the conveyor is operated according to the command signal. The plastic container is selected according to the type of the raw material, the plastic container is crushed by the crusher selected by the operation of the automatic sorting machine, and the crushed pieces are accumulated in the silo and reused as the raw material.

[0008]

EXAMPLES Examples will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a top view of a sorting apparatus based on a raw material for a waste plastic container, and FIG. 2 shows a side view of the same.

In FIGS. 1 and 2, 1 is a waste plastic container, and 2 is a belt conveyor for transferring the container. The light emitting source 3a of the infrared spectroscope 3 is provided on one of the outer sides of the belt conveyor 2, and the other light emitting source 3a is provided on the other side.
A light receiving source 3b is provided so as to face the. With this infrared spectroscope 3, it is possible to detect the type of raw material of the various waste plastic containers 1 which are being aligned by the belt conveyor 2 and being transferred.

As the infrared spectroscope 3, a Shimadzu Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer (Shimadzu Corporation) or the like can be used. Adjacent to the infrared spectroscope 3, at least one or more automatic sorters 4 are provided in the traveling direction of the belt conveyor 2. The automatic sorting machine 4 includes a support base 10 provided on a side portion of the belt conveyor 2, a separation plate 11 rotatably attached to a support shaft of the support base 10, and a cylinder 12 that operates the separation plate 11. Then, by operating the sorting plate 11, the waste plastic container 1 being transferred by the belt conveyor 2 is discharged from the belt conveyor 2 to the crusher 5.
The cylinder operates hydraulically or pneumatically.

Further, each automatic sorting machine 4a, 4b, 4c
The crusher 5a is located at the opposite position across the belt conveyor 2 of
5b, 5c are provided respectively, and each crusher 5a, 5b,
The silos (not shown) for accumulating the crushed pieces of the crushed waste plastic container 1 are connected to 5c, respectively.

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be described. The waste plastic container 1 is supplied to the belt conveyor 2 manually or automatically in a state where the lid is removed and the content liquid is discarded. When the waste plastic container 1 being transferred by the belt conveyor 2 passes between the light emitting source 3a and the light receiving source 3b of the infrared spectroscope 3 provided outside the belt conveyor 2, the difference in the kind of the raw material is analyzed. It is determined by the detected waveform. In advance, due to the difference in spectral detection waveform,
Since each automatic sorting machine 4 is set to operate, each automatic sorting machine 4 provided downstream of the belt conveyor 2 operates in accordance with the command signal from the infrared spectroscope 3.
By the operation, each crusher 5 is selected to crush the waste plastic container 1, and the crushed container 1 is accumulated in each silo.

For example, if the crusher 5a is a vinyl chloride (PV
C), 5b for polyester (PET), and 5c for polystyrene (PS), the spectral detection waveform of the PVC from the infrared spectroscope 3 when the raw material of the waste plastic container 1 is PVC. The automatic sorting machine 4a is activated by the command signal corresponding to
The waste plastic container 1 above is made of PVC by the separating plate 11.
It is sent to the crushing machine 5a for crushing. The non-target plastic containers 6 that do not have the corresponding crusher 5 pass through all the automatic sorting machines 4 and are collected in a collection container (not shown) provided at the end of the belt conveyor 2 or the like.

Although the belt conveyor 2 is described as the conveyor in the above embodiment, any chain conveyor may be used as long as it is an endless conveyor.

[0015]

As described above, according to the present invention, the type of the raw material of the plastic container is automatically discriminated by the infrared spectroscope, so that the labor and time required for the sorting work can be reduced. In addition, it is possible to avoid a situation where it is difficult to reuse the raw material due to mixing of different raw materials due to manual selection error.

Further, since each sorter is operated and each crusher is selected according to the type of each plastic raw material, each raw material can be easily recovered, and the waste plastic container It became easy to reuse as a raw material.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a top view showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a side view showing an embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Plastic container (waste plastic container) 2 Conveyor (belt conveyor) 3 Infrared spectroscope 4 Automatic sorter 5 Crusher 6 Not applicable container 10 Support 11 Sorting plate 12 Cylinder

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An infrared spectroscope determines the type of raw material of a plastic container being transferred by a conveyor, and an automatic sorter provided at least at one or more places in the traveling direction of the conveyor operates according to a command signal from the infrared spectroscope. Then, the method for selecting a plastic container according to the type of the raw material, the plastic container is selected. 2. A raw material for a plastic container according to claim 1, wherein the plastic container is crushed by a crusher selected by the operation of each automatic sorting machine, and the crushed pieces of the plastic container are accumulated in a silo. Sorting method. 3. A conveyor for transferring a plastic container, an infrared spectroscope provided outside the conveyor for discriminating the kind of raw material of the plastic container being transferred, and at least one or more places provided in the traveling direction of the conveyor for the infrared spectroscopy. And a crusher selected according to the operation of the automatic classifier, and a silo for accumulating the crushed pieces of the plastic container crushed by the crusher. A sorting device based on the raw material of the plastic container.