Electrostatic separation process of metal/plastic granular mixtures using a horizontal rotating disk

A rotating disk electrostatic separation device was developed and studied for the separation of mm-size metal and plastic particles. The device is constituted by two helical concentric electrodes build up on the top side of a simple layer PCB, and supplied by two high voltage amplifiers delivering square, DC and AC waveform signals. The separation mechanism is based on an electro-adhesion force applied on metal particles and an air suction force for recovering the plastic particles. The obtained results as functions of the voltage level, the rotating speed, and the suction force confirmed the high separation performance in terms of recovery and purity rates which reached values of 95 and 100%, respectively.