A method and system for recycling wind turbine blades. A scalper scalps off balsa wood and foam from recycled composite chips, a lump breaker shatters the chips produced by the scalper, a hammer mill breaks fiber chips produced by the lump breaker to reduce the chips to strand clusters, a vibratory screen and cyclone air classifier or circular vibratory screener separate strand clusters of acceptable size from larger strand clusters that require repeated processing with a hammer mill, another vibratory screen and cyclone air classifier or circular vibratory screener further separate strand clusters of acceptable size from larger strand clusters that require repeated processing with a hammer mill, and a granulator pulverizes the resulting fiber strand into micro-fibers that can be used as reinforcement fibers.

A system and method for tennis ball recycling that processes tennis balls into one or more constituent components to generate useful products is disclosed. The system includes a hopper to hold the balls for recycling; a grinder having a plurality of blades to initially cut the tennis balls in a first step to separate the rubber from the nylon; a cyclonic extractor that further separates loose fibers out in a second step; a trommel separator that further filters the broken down components of the tennis balls for use in new products.

A system and method are for separating the layers of multilayer plastics, the fragments of multilayer plastic being carried into a receptacle (1) pressurized for 10 to 60 seconds. The receptacle is pressurized using overheated vapor generated in a boiler and introduced into the receptacle until reaching a pressure between 1 and 12 bar and a temperature between 100 and 191.12° C. The fragments are then carried to a discharge tank at a relative pressure between −0.7 and 0.1 bar and at a temperature between 15 and 25° C. for between 1 and 5 minutes. The multilayer fragments are later transferred to a mechanical separation unit where the fragments are separated into fragments of single-layer plastic and, lastly, to a mechanical sorting unit where the fragments are sorted by material.

The invention relates to a process for recycling articles comprising a composite material, the composite material comprising a polymer matrix and a reinforcement, said process being characterized in that it comprises the following steps: introducing the article into a reactor suitable for heating the article, heating the article in the reactor at a given temperature, in order to destructure the polymer matrix, separating the reinforcement from the destructured polymer matrix, and contacting the reinforcement with a first heat-transfer means in order to recover heat.
The invention also relates to a system for recycling an article made of composite material.

A method is disclosed for separating plastic and cellulose from post-consumer absorbent sanitary products. The method includes sterilizing successive batches of post-consumer absorbent sanitary products in at least one rotary autoclave. The method further includes shredding the sterilized absorbent sanitary products and obtaining sterilized and shredded material containing plastic and cellulose. The method further includes drying the sterilized and shredded material containing plastic and cellulose, and separating cellulose from plastic from said sterilized, shredded and dried material in at least one centrifugal separator.

The present invention relates to a process for treating an object comprising a first material and a second material bound to the first material by centrifugal force. A process for treating an object comprising a first material which is a thermoplastic polymer and a second material selected from the group consisting of silicones, polyurethanes, fluorinated polymers, rubbers and polyvinylchloride bound to the first material, wherein the density of the first material is different from the density of the second material, said process comprising the following steps: (i) physically treating the object to obtain micronized particles, (ii) suspending the micronized particles in an acidic or alkaline solution to at least partially separate the first material from the second material, (iii) recovering the solids from the suspension obtained in step (ii) and suspending the recovered solids in a liquid composed of water and dissolved salt and having a density which is between the density of the first material and the density of the second material, and (iv) separating the first material from the second material by applying a centrifugal force to the suspension obtained in step (iii).

A supercritical hydrocyclotron for transforming one or more selected polymeric materials into a plurality of reaction products via supercritical or near-supercritical water reaction that enable the rapid and economic conversion of solid biomass and/or waste plastic materials (i.e., organic materials) into smaller liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon moleculessmaller hydrocarbon molecules that, in turn, are useful as chemical feedstock materials including, for example, liquid transportation fuels and bio-adhesives. The innovative supercritical hydrocyclonic systems and related mobile units disclosed herein comprise, in combination, (1) a supercritical water (or near-supercritical water) treatment system for converting organic materials into smaller hydrocarbon molecules, and (2) a hydrocyclonic separation system for recovering the smaller hydrocarbon molecules from the combined water/hydrocarbon effluent.

A process (1, 101, 201) for separating a fibrous target component (21) from textile waste (2, 5) is shown, said textile waste (2, 5) containing the target component (21) and at least one ancillary component (22), whereby the target component (21) consists of water-swellable textile fibers (51) with a density higher than the density of water, the process (1, 101, 201) comprising the steps: a) dispersing the comminuted textile waste (5) in an aqueous solution (7) to obtain a suspension (8) containing the textile waste (5), and b) separating the dispersed textile waste (5) into a high-density target fraction (81) comprising the target component (21), and a low-density residual fraction (82) comprising the at least one ancillary component (22), according to the respective density of said components (21, 22). In order to provide a reliable, fast process for the separation of water-swellable fibers from other textile fibers which are similar in density, it is proposed, that the aqueous solution (7) is an alkaline aqueous solution (7) and the target component fibers (51) are swelled in the alkaline aqueous solution (7) prior to step b), thereby increasing the density and weight of said target component (21) relative to the density and weight of the ancillary component (22).

A system for densification of recycled pre-preg fibers may include a cutting device configured to receive the recycled pre-preg fibers having various lengths, and cut the recycled pre-preg fibers to produce cut fibers having a desired length, and a mixer configured to mix wetted, cut fibers to generate bound fibers having an increased bulk density relative to a bulk density of the cut fibers.

Method of recycling a textile material which comprises cellulose for manufacturing regenerated cellulosic molded bodies, wherein in the method the textile material is comminuted, at least a part of non-fiber-constituents of the comminuted textile material is separated from fiber-constituents of the comminuted textile material, at least a part of non-cellulosic fibers of the fiber-constituents is mechanically separated from cellulosic fibers of the fiber-constituents, at least a further part of the non-cellulosic fibers is chemically separated from the cellulosic fibers, and the molded bodies are generated based on the cellulosic fibers after mechanically separating and chemically separating.