Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation

Clean Technology
Clean Technology
PLASTIC RECYCLING SYSTEM USING SOLVENT-TARGETED RECOVERY AND PRECIPITATION (STRAP)
WARF: P230018US01

Inventors: George Huber, Zhuo Xu, Kevin Sanchez-Rivera, Ezra Bar-Ziv, Shreyas Kolapkar, Victor Ierulli


The Invention
UW-Madison researchers have developed a system to carry out solvent targeted recovery and precipitation (STRAP) and recover polymers from mixed plastic wastes. The major components in this system are: (i) a shredder that produces plastic particles with certain size and aspect ratio to be flowable and fast dissolvable; (ii) a feeder that has unique angle and variable pitch screw to help with constant flow without bridging; (iii) a dissolution vessel that has unique design for efficient mixing and drainage, with optimized process parameters; (iv) high and low temperature filters that have an active mechanism, optimized screen size and structure to separate solids and liquids with high efficiency; (v) a cooler and precipitator with high cooling efficiency, twin-screw design for self-cleaning, and optimized process parameter to achieve full precipitation with a small footprint; (vi) a solvent recovery unit that can help achieve >99% recovery rate and is able to convey the dried plastics after recovering the solvent; (vii) a distillation unit to purify the solvents when required; (viii) a heat management system that controls the temperature of all system components; and (ix) an extruder that will produce large quantities of recycled plastic pellets, and remove the remaining solvent residues during the process.
Additional Information
For More Information About the Inventors
For current licensing status, please contact Jennifer Gottwald at [javascript protected email address] or 608-960-9854

WARF