A method of manufacturing bulked continuous carpet filament that includes providing a polymer melt and separating the polymer melt from the extruder into at least eight streams. The multiple streams are exposed to a chamber pressure within a chamber that is below approximately 25 millibars, or another predetermined pressure. The streams are recombined into a single polymer stream. Polymer from the polymer stream is then formed into bulked continuous carpet filament.

A method produces a shaped body from plastic waste and thermoplastic material including natural fiber components or thermoplastic material and natural fibers. Plastic waste and thermoplastic plastic including natural fiber components or thermoplastic plastic and natural fibers are introduced into a mixing device. The introduced materials are subsequently mixed in such a way that the materials are comminuted and at least partially melted, so that a substantially moldable base material is available after mixing. This at least partially melted base material is transferred into a mold for shaping the shaped body.

The present invention is generally directed to methods and systems for making thermoformed structural elements and composites, including the use of composites, dissimilar or variable processing materials. End products can have the same outward appearance as those products made by more demanding, more expensive extrusion process or injection process, but the end products can be pre-engineered to have significantly, unexpectedly, improved physical and chemical properties.

The method of recycling carbon fiber prepreg waste includes collecting uncured carbon fiber prepreg waste, where the carbon fiber prepreg waste still includes the backing film associated with the carbon fiber prepreg (typically in the form of a colored polyethylene layer). The uncured carbon fiber prepreg waste is then shredded and inserted into either an open or a closed mold. The mold is then inserted into a hot press, where the shredded carbon fiber prepreg waste is cured under selected temperature and pressure for a selected period of time, dependent upon the particular volume of waste and the desired recycled product. Alternatively, the shredded carbon fiber prepreg waste may be rolled in a hot metallic roller or extruded in a hot melt extruder.

A block of construction material is fabricated by harvesting a plurality of tread strips from a plurality of tires by, for each tire, removing a tread texture of a tread cap from each tire using a tread removal device while leaving a remaining portion of the tread cap intact with one or more sidewalls and shoulders of each tire, removing the side walls and the entire shoulders from each tire by cutting through the remaining portion of each tread cap, and slicing the remaining portion of each tread cap to produce tread strips. Each strip is preheated, and while maintaining the temperature, stacked onto the gummed previous strips, until a block of desirable size is yielded. Use of fasteners, plates and membranes to maintain the stacked tread strips into a block arrangement is eliminated.

Methods of producing particles of fiber and resin from fiber-resin composite materials are disclosed. The particles may be combined with a resin system and optionally combined with fillers, binders or reinforcements to produce new cured solid composite products.

Techniques for converting plastic bags to a recyclable form are described. In some implementations, a device includes an outer container having an outer lid, an inner container situated within the outer container having an opening, and one or more heating elements. The inner container has an inner lid configured to cover the inner container's opening, and the outer lid of the outer container is configured to close over the inner lid. In response to a user input to the device, a conversion cycle is initiated in which electric power is supplied to one or more heating elements so that the one or more heating elements raise the inner container's internal temperature to a target temperature and maintain the inner container's internal temperature at a minimum of the target temperature for a predetermined conversion time sufficient to convert one or more plastic bags within the inner container to a recyclable plastic block.

A method for forming a structural tile for use in a composite panel includes providing a base plate of a compression mold assembly. The method also includes placing a grid structure mold of the compression mold assembly atop the base plate. The grid structure mold defines a cavity having a desired shape for a grid structure. Further, the method includes filling the cavity of the grid structure mold with a plurality of fragments of recycled fiber reinforced polymer material. Moreover, the method includes placing a cover plate of the compression mold assembly atop the grid structure mold to apply pressure to the grid structure mold. The method also includes applying heat to the cover plate to heat the plurality of fragments of recycled fiber reinforced polymer material such that the recycled fiber reinforced polymer material melts within the cavity. In addition, the method includes allowing the melted recycled fiber reinforced polymer material to cure to form the structural tile.

Example implementations include a system and method of using plastic from bodies of water and creating a floating platform by collecting plastic from a body of water, cleaning the collected plastic, melting and compacting the plastic, molding a plurality of hexagonal blocks from the compacted plastic, stacking the plurality of hexagonal blocks, wherein a system of springs and an energy storage device is provided between each of the plurality of hexagonal blocks, and coating the stacked blocks with a non-toxic material. Through the use of various onboard functionalities, energy may be generated to regulate temperature and provide electricity, oxygen may be supplied, and water may be purified.

A process for making polymer composition from mixed plastic waste is disclosed. The composition comprises plastic waste of different types obtained from recycled unidentified, uncleaned, unsorted, compacted and homogenized plastic waste. Preferably the plastic waste comprises polyethylene (PE), approximately 50-60% of its total volume; polypropylene (PP), approximately 20-30% of its total volume; polystyrene (PS), approximately 5-10% of its total volume; a mixture of unidentified plastic and other materials, approximately 1-10% of its total volume. The mixture of unidentified plastics comprises polyamides (PA), Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), Polyacetal (POM), and Polycarbonate (PC).