Delamination and Separation of Aluminum-Polyethylene-Paper Packing Material
Pages 136-141
Chongqing Wang, Qun Liu, Hui Wang, Chengcheng Luo, Fangfang Jia and Xiangrui Meng

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.6000:1929-5995.2014.03.02.8

Published: 07 July 2014

Abstract: Delamination and separation of laminated aluminum- polyethylene-paper packaging material were conducted for recycling packaging materials. Delamination was carried out using glacial acetic acid (GAA) solution. L₉ (3⁴) orthogonal experiments demonstrate that the most significant factor is GAA concentration followed by temperature and liquid/solid ratio. The delamination time decreased sharply with increasing temperature and the GAA concentration. The packaging material was delaminated under conditions of 60 ˚C, 70 v% GAA solution, liquid/solid ratio 20:1 and delamination time 60 min, and separation of polyethylene, paper and aluminum foil was conducted through sink-float method and air separation. Polyethylene, paper and aluminum foil were separated efficiently. The recovery and purity of aluminum foil was 90.81% and 100%, respectively; the purity of polyethylene was 100%; the recovery and purity of paper was 100% and 96.03%, respectively. This study offers some technical insights for recycling of aluminum-plastic packaging.