A new model of repulsive force in eddy current separation for recovering waste toner cartridges

Eddy current separation (ECS) is an efficient method for separating aluminum from plastic in crushed waste toner cartridge (TCs). However, in China, ECS quality of aluminum from plastic is rather low in production practice. Repeating separation even manual sorting is required in the production. Improving separation quality of aluminum has been the pressing problem in the recovery of waste TCs. Furthermore, improving ECS quality can reduce the secondary-pollution (furan and dioxin) brought by plastic in later smelting process for the purification of recovered aluminum. Thus, a new model of repulsive force containing impact factors (machine: B(r), k, R, S(m), B(m); material: S(p), V, γ; and operation: ω(m), v, δ) of the separation process was constructed for guiding the ECS process of waste TCs recovering in this paper. For testing whether the model of repulsive force was suitable to guide the ECS, calculation and experiment of detachment angle of aluminum flake were studied. The calculation results of the detachment angles were agreed with the testing experiment. It indicates that the model is suitable for guiding the ECS of waste TCs recovering.