Influence of Material Moisture on the Tribocharging Process of Plastic Granules

The control of the triboelectrification factors is the key for a successful application of electrostatic separation to the recycling of mixed plastics waste. This article focuses on the influence of material moisture on the tribocharging process of three granular materials: polyamide (PA), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

Different values of moisture content were obtained by immersing the material in water or drying it in a laboratory oven. Afterward, the granular material was tribocharged on the tray of a vibratory feeder and the accumulated charge was measured by an electrometer.

The maximum charge/mass ratio was obtained for the three plastic materials at different values of moisture content: 0.27% for PA, 0.12% for PET 0.1% for PVC. Series of 5 consecutive tribocharging experiments performed on the same sample, show that the first contributes with the greater amount of granules charge while the other four only slightly increment this value. The graphical representation of the evolution of the charge/mass ratio versus number of tribocharging experiment conducts to the conclusion that: i) the charge of the granules tends to saturate; ii) it is useless to excessively increase the duration of the tribocharging process.