×
INTELLIGENT WORK FORUMS
FOR ENGINEERING PROFESSIONALS

Log In

Come Join Us!

Are you an
Engineering professional?
Join Eng-Tips Forums!
  • Talk With Other Members
  • Be Notified Of Responses
    To Your Posts
  • Keyword Search
  • One-Click Access To Your
    Favorite Forums
  • Automated Signatures
    On Your Posts
  • Best Of All, It's Free!
  • Students Click Here

*Eng-Tips's functionality depends on members receiving e-mail. By joining you are opting in to receive e-mail.

Posting Guidelines

Promoting, selling, recruiting, coursework and thesis posting is forbidden.

Students Click Here

Jobs

Automated polymer identification on laboratory samples

Automated polymer identification on laboratory samples

Automated polymer identification on laboratory samples

(OP)
Hi all,

I'm in search of a piece of equipment which is able to identify different polymers between a bulk of PET flakes.
I've been told such equipment exists but I don't know how and what and where to look.

If possible, the idea is to have a sample of lets say 50g and spread is out on a surface, put the equipment above the sample and read out the amounts of different polymers are in the sample, much like an online LAB color measuring divice.

Can anyone help me on this one. Any info you've got on automated measuring of different polymers in a one type polymer bulk, on lab scale is welcome.

Regards!

RE: Automated polymer identification on laboratory samples

I have seen PET bottle recycling lines where the bottles are hand sorted initially then sorted by floatation to separate the olefins which float while other polymers including PET sink, then running under an infa red light and measuring transmission. If IR in a very specific wavelength is not transmitted, a well timed air blast removes all the chip from that area. It was quite a sophisticated system and ran at very high speed.

I don't know who makes it or where to buy it. I suspect some PET raw materials manufacturers like Eastman Kodak might be able to point you to a supplier of such equipment.

Otherwise, search by terms like IR identification of PVC or PET or equipment for sorting plastic resins by spectophotometry or a series of searches around that sort of terminology.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &
http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm
for site rules

RE: Automated polymer identification on laboratory samples

(OP)
Pat & Pad,

Thank you for your posts. We have these systems in our factory however I want to know of small scale equipment specific for in a laboratory. At this moment we are inspecting the samples visually and we want to automate that. We want the QC inspection time down to a minimum and are looking for ways to automate the identification of other polymers in lab scale samples.
I have already checked the suppliers of industrial machines but they have these technologisch only on large scale.

Thanks

RE: Automated polymer identification on laboratory samples

(OP)
Hi Pat,
I know of IR spectrophotometers but they can only handle a small quantity, like the size of a KBr tablet.
I have talked with a supplier of Perkin Elmer during my internship at DOW benelux and they had an FTIR device that could show different color scales on a sample and each color represented a different kind of substance.
This would be a good technique if I could use it on a surface of flakes of 10x10cm.
If you know of a company who might have devices that are capable of measuring with IR on approx. that surface size I would like to hear of it.

Regards

Red Flag This Post

Please let us know here why this post is inappropriate. Reasons such as off-topic, duplicates, flames, illegal, vulgar, or students posting their homework.

Red Flag Submitted

Thank you for helping keep Eng-Tips Forums free from inappropriate posts.
The Eng-Tips staff will check this out and take appropriate action.

Reply To This Thread

Posting in the Eng-Tips forums is a member-only feature.

Click Here to join Eng-Tips and talk with other members!


Resources