A method for recovering metallic materials from crystalline silicon photovoltaic modules. The method includes removing aluminium frames and junction boxes from the photovoltaic modules to provide photovoltaic sandwich structures. The method further includes shredding the photovoltaic sandwich structures to form photovoltaic sandwich structure particles and electrostatically separating the photovoltaic sandwich structure particles into a first fraction and a second fraction with an electrostatic separator. The method further includes feeding at least a portion of the second fraction to an electrostatic separator for one or more subsequent electrostatic separations into the first and second fractions, wherein the first fraction includes less than 5 percent by weight of total polymer particles and is substantially free of glass particles.

The present invention provides a dielectric particle sorting apparatus. The dielectric particle sorting apparatus comprises: a chamber; a bottom electrode in the chamber; and a top electrode disposed at the top of the chamber so as to be spaced from the bottom electrode therein, wherein dielectric particles are positioned on the bottom electrode so that, when an alternating-current electric field is applied, the dielectric particles are electrified to be induced to flow upward, and thus the dielectric particles are sorted, and voltage and frequency are controlled so that the dielectric particles are controlled by particle size, weight, density, permittivity or surface area.

A tribo-electrostatic separation process for fractionating a feed mixture derived from dried distiller's grains (DDG) or distiller's dried grains and mixed with solubles (DDGS) is disclosed.

A system for separating a mineral from a clay using a gas injection module includes a solution tank configured to receive a supersaturated solution including at least one mineral. The system also includes a gas injection module in fluid communication with the solution tank and configured to receive at least a portion of the supersaturated solution. The system includes at least one gas injection port in fluid communication with a source of gas and the gas injection module. The gas injection port is configured to inject a gas to the supersaturated solution. During operation of the system, the gas causes at least a portion of the supersaturated solution to crystallize.

The invention relates to a method for separating, in batches, a mixture comprising granules of at least two materials, comprising the following successive steps for each of the batches: introducing a batch into a fluidizing chamber (40) defined by a reactor (16) and obtaining an introduced batch (38), the granules of the batch being initially at rest, starting fluidization and obtaining at least one fluidized bed (18) in the fluidizing chamber, the fluidization being achieved by way of at least one ascending stream of fluid (42) that puts at least a fraction of the granules of the introduced batch into suspension, the fluidized bed being charged via the triboelectric effect, modifying the stream of fluid (42) and discharging at least 90% by mass of the introduced batch from the fluidizing chamber, passing the fed out batch in one or more electric fields intended to separate the discharged batch.