Separation of PET and PVC by Flotation

Separation of PET and PVC is a key technology to achieve effective plastics recycling but no efficient and economically feasible method has been developed yet. The application of flotation was investigated by many researchers but the causes of the selectivity were not clarified. This paper described the adsorption mechanism of wetting agents onto plastics, using the agents which have various polarity and hydrocarbon chain length. It was found that (1) hydrophobic interaction played a predominant role for the adsorption, (2) anionic wetting agents could be adsorbed onto negatively charged plastics with the polar radicals oriented outer part of the plastics, then often depressed plastics more effectively than cationic agents, and (3) PET and PVC could be separated with dodecyamine hydrochloride and sodium dodecyl- sulfonate in the concentration ranges of 1.0$\times$10$^{[-10]}$ $^{6}$ -5.0$\times$10$^{[-10]}$ $^{5}$ and 2.0$\times$10$^{[-10]}$ $^{6}$ -1.0$\times$10$^{[-10]}$ $^{5}$ mo1/1, respectively.