Microwave treatment combined with wetting agent for an efficient flotation separation of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Microwave treatment combined with wetting agent for an efficient flotation separation of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) from plastic mixtures Yan hui Qu1 · Yan peng Li1,2,3 · Xiao tong Zou1 · Kai wei Xu1 · Ya ting Xue1 Received: 13 March 2020 / Accepted: 24 August 2020 © Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), as a main component of plastics of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), shows high potential for recycling, which is restricted by the absence of an efficient separation method. Herein, a novel surface treatment method, microwave treatment combined with a wetting agent, was proposed to selectively change the hydrophilicity of the mixed waste plastics, which efficiently separated ABS from the WEEE plastics by flotation. The results of this approach provided the following optimal conditions, i.e., microwave power 700 W, microwave irradiation time 3 min, concentration of wetting agent carboxymethylcellulose sodium (CMC) 25 mg/L, treatment time with CMC 5 min, stirring rate 1800 rpm, frother concentration 40 mg/L, and flotation time 4 min. Under these optimal conditions, the recovery and the purity of ABS reached 97.70% and 99.86%, respectively. The mechanism of the surface treatment was examined by means of contact angle, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and adsorption kinetics. The results showed that the selective wetting mechanism can be attributed to the physisorption of CMC on the surface of plastics. In conclusion, this surface treatment method is expected to provide technological insights for the separation and recovery of waste ABS from WEEE plastics. Keywords Waste plastics recycling · Surface treatment · Microwave · Wetting agent · Plastic flotation
Introduction Large amounts of electrical and electronic devices have been developed and impacted the modern life, making people’s lives easier [1, 2]. However, this development has a reverse effect, consisting of the corresponding waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) spread out across the world [3, 4]. It was estimated that the China alone will generate 28.4 million tons of WEEE by 2030 [2]. Plastics account for Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10163-020-01099-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Yan peng Li [email protected] 1
School of Water and Environment, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710054, China
2
Key Laboratory of Subsurface Hydrology and Ecology in Arid Areas, Ministry of Education, Xi’an 710054, China
3
Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Land Consolidation, Xi’an 710075, China
up to about 30–50% of WEEE content [3, 5]. In other words, at least 8.5 million tons of WEEE plastics will be produced in China by 2030. However, about 90% of WEEE plastics are disposed of by incineration and landfill, which causes serious environmental problems [1, 6]. Therefore, many studies have focused on the recycling of waste plastic
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