| CPC B02C 23/36 (2013.01) [B02C 18/0084 (2013.01); B02C 18/06 (2013.01); B02C 19/0056 (2013.01); B02C 23/14 (2013.01); B02C 23/38 (2013.01); B09B 5/00 (2013.01); B02C 2201/06 (2013.01)] | 16 Claims |
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1. A carpet recycling method comprising the operations of:
preprocessing a carpet comprising fibrous carpet materials and carpet ash by:
dividing the carpet into a plurality of pieces less than nine square inches in area but greater than one square inch in area;
crushing the pieces of carpet to release crushed carpet ash from the pieces of carpet; and
performing a first separation operation to separate at least a portion of the crushed carpet ash from the pieces of carpet;
in a toroidal flow pulper, disintegrating the pieces of carpet in a quantity of liquid to form a slurry of liquid, fibrous carpet materials, and disintegrated carpet ash;
performing a second separation operation to separate at least a portion of said liquid and disintegrated carpet ash from said fibrous carpet materials;
refining the fibrous carpet materials by subjecting the fibrous carpet materials to abrasive beating in the presence of additional liquid to liberate at least a portion of the carpet ash remaining in the fibrous carpet materials following the second separation operation; and
performing a third separation operation to separate at least a portion of the additional liquid and liberated carpet ash from the fibrous carpet materials;
drying said fibrous carpet materials;
isolating at least a portion of said disintegrated carpet ash from said liquid and at least a portion of said liberated carpet ash from said additional liquid; and
drying said isolated carpet ash;
whereby a first output comprising crushed carpet ash, a second output comprising dried separated fibrous carpet materials and a third output comprising dried carpet ash are produced.
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