JPH0691651A - Machine for volume-reducing plastic container - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a machine for volume-reducing plastic container which can be operated intermittently with excellent energy efficiency and is small in size with low cost, by providing a heating chamber and a compressing chamber, a high frequency applying means and a water supply means in the heating chamber and a compressing means in the compressing chamber. CONSTITUTION:In a volume-reducing machine 1, a pressure piston 11 is lowered, a heating chamber 21 and a compressing chamber 22 are partitioned by a separator 12 attached to the piston 11, a plastic container to be processed is put in the heating chamber 21 from a material charge port and the chamber is closed with a cover, water is dispersed from an atomizer 5, and a microwave heating device 4 is operated so as to heat and soften the container. When the plastic container in the heating chamber 21 is softened to a degree to be plasticized, the operation of the microwave heating device 4 is stopped. Thereafter, the pressure piston 11 is lifted together with the separator 12, an extruding piston 7 is operated by an extruding cylinder 8, and the softened plastic container is moved to the compressing chamber 22. Then, the pressure piston 11 is lowered so as to compress and volume-reduce the plastic container.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a device for compressing a used plastic container to reduce its volume.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Plastic containers are widely used as food packaging containers. For example, a tray formed by thermoforming a polystyrene foam sheet is inexpensive, has excellent shape retention, heat insulation, etc. and is hygienic, so put the food on a plate and wrap the top surface with a stretch film etc. to store the product at the store. Used to sell.

Conventionally, most plastic containers have been disposed of after use, but in recent years, from the viewpoint of waste problems and effective use of resources, it is strongly recommended to collect and reuse used containers. Is requested.

In order to reuse plastic containers, used containers are separately collected and sent to a recycling plant, and after various plastics are subjected to necessary treatments such as sorting, crushing, washing and drying, It is put into a volume reducing machine, melted, extruded into a predetermined shape to form pellets, and the pellets are molded again and reused.

When used containers are collected and transported to a reprocessing plant, many plastic molded products are used as plastic containers and the containers have a three-dimensional shape such as a cup shape, so that they are collected in a very bulky manner. In this case, there is a problem in that it is bulky, the space for the collection place is large, and the transportation cost is high when sending it to the reprocessing plant. In order to reduce the transportation cost, it is necessary to compress the container at the collecting place to reduce the volume and then carry the container, and a volume reducing machine for easily reducing the volume at the collecting place is desired.

Conventionally, as a plastic volume reducer, for example, a device for putting plastic into a container in which heated air or the like is circulated and heating and melting the volume to reduce the volume, or heating the wall of the container like an extruder. An apparatus and the like which are melted by conductive heat and pushed out are known.

[0007]

What is required of the volume reducing machine used at the collection site is that it be supplied at a low cost. And it is important that it can be used with a simple operation.

However, in the conventional volume reducing machine, when reducing the volume of low density plastic such as plastic foam molded food trays, the one using heated air has poor heat conduction and efficiency is lowered. Generally, it becomes a large device and is not practical for a small device. Further, the one using an apparatus such as an extruder needs to be finely cut in order to send the plastic to be processed into the inside of the extruder, a crushing apparatus is required, and the apparatus becomes complicated, After all, it has only been put to practical use in large devices. Furthermore, in the conventional volume reducer, preheating and preheating such as temperature rise are required for a long time in order to obtain a sufficient heating temperature.
It is not suitable for intermittently reducing the volume of a small amount of plastic containers because the energy efficiency is significantly deteriorated.
Further, the preparatory heating itself is very disadvantageous in terms of energy efficiency.

The present invention has been made in order to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art, and provides a compact and low-priced plastic container volume reducer which is intermittently operable, energy efficient, and small in size. The purpose is to do.

[0010]

Means for Solving the Problems As a result of diligent study of the above problems, the present inventor has found that when a plastic container is completely melted by a conventional volume reducing machine, the volume of a foamed molded product is reduced to about 1/50. However, in order to reduce the transportation cost, it is sufficient to reduce the volume to about 1/4, and a large-scale heating device such as the conventional device is unnecessary, and a microwave heating device or the like is required for heating. The inventors have found that high-frequency applying means can be used and have completed the present invention.

That is, the plastic container volume reducer of the present invention has a heating / compression chamber for heating and compressing the plastic container, and the heating / compression chamber has a high-frequency applying means, a water supplying means, and a heating means. And a compression means for compressing the plastic container.

The plastic container volume reducer of the present invention comprises a heating chamber for heating the plastic container and a compression chamber for compressing the heated container. The heating chamber has a high frequency applying means and water. Is provided, and the compression chamber is provided with compression means.

[0013]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the drawings. 1 shows an embodiment of the present invention.
2 is a sectional view showing an example of the volume reducing machine of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing another example of the volume reducing machine of the present invention, and FIG. 3 is a side view of the volume reducing machine of FIG.

The volume reducing machine 1 of the present invention has, for example, as shown in FIG. 1, a heating / compression chamber 2 for heating and compressing a plastic container, and the heating / compression chamber 2 is provided with a microwave irradiation device 4. Such a high-frequency applying unit, a water supplying unit such as a water sprayer 5, and a compressing unit 9 for compressing a heated plastic container are provided at the upper part of the heating / compressing chamber. still,
Although not particularly shown, the compression means may be provided in the lateral direction instead of being provided in the upper part of the heating / compression chamber.

Further, in the volume reducer of the present invention, as shown in FIG. 2, the heating / compressing chambers may be separately provided like the heating chamber 21 and the compression chamber 22. In this case, the heating chamber 21 has a microwave irradiation device 4 and a water sprayer 5 for spraying water into the container.
And an extruder 6 for feeding the heated container from the heating chamber 2 to the compression chamber 3. The extruding device 6 includes an extruding piston 7 and an extruding cylinder 8 and is formed to be hydraulically driven.

The heating / compression chamber 2 or the compression chamber 22 is used to pressurize a container softened by heating (in the heating chamber 21) to reduce the volume thereof, and includes a pressurizing cylinder 10 and a pressurizing piston 11. The compression means 9 is provided. When the heating chamber and the compression chamber are separately provided as shown in FIG. 2, the pressurizing piston 10 has a partition plate 12 for partitioning the heating chamber 21 and the compression chamber 22.
Is attached, the pressurizing piston 10 descends and at the same time the separator plate 12 also descends to close the heating chamber 21 and the compression chamber 22, and the pressurizing piston 11 ascends and simultaneously the separator plate rises to compress the heating chamber 21. The chamber 22 is formed so as to communicate therewith.

At the bottom of the heating / compression chamber 2 or the compression chamber 21, there is provided an extruding rod 13 for extruding the container compressed by the pressure piston 11 to the outside.
Reference numeral 3 is connected to a hydraulically driven take-out cylinder 14.

The heating / compression chamber 2 of the volume reducer shown in FIG. 1 is provided with a raw material inlet for introducing a plastic container to be treated on its side surface (not shown), and the volume reducer shown in FIG. A lid 15 is provided on the upper part of the heating chamber 22 so as to be openable and closable (see FIG. 3), and a raw material inlet 16 is formed. The inside of the heating chamber 22 or the heating / compression chamber 2 is covered with an outer cover plate 17, and the outer cover plate 17 is formed of a material that shields microwaves, for example, a composite material of glass fiber and Teflon having a small loss coefficient. There is.

As the high frequency applying means used in the present invention, a microwave heating device, a high frequency dielectric heating device or the like can be used. The high frequency used in the present invention has a frequency of 1 to 500 MHz and an output of 400 W to 100 K.
What is about W is used. 10 about oscillation frequency
A microwave of 00 MHz or higher is preferable.

Although various types of microwave heating devices 4 can be used, generally, a heating chamber 21 (or a microwave oven having a frequency of 2450 MHz formed in a box-shaped oven through a waveguide by a microwave oscillating device) (or heating·
It is formed so as to be introduced into the compression chamber 2) (the same format as a microwave oven). An output of about 1.5 to 5 Kw is usually used as the output of the microwave oscillator. As such a microwave oscillating device, a Toshiba magnetron (trade name, etc.) commercially available from Toshiba Corporation can be used.

In the present invention, when a high frequency dielectric heating device is used as the high frequency applying means instead of the microwave heating device, a plastic container is sandwiched between the heating / compression chamber 2 or the heating chamber 21. The electrodes may be attached at appropriate positions.

The pressure of the pressurizing cylinder 10 of the pressurizing means 9 is preferably a pressure at which bubbles are not completely collapsed, for example, when a plastic container made of foam is used, specifically, 1.5 to 10 kg / It is about cm ² . Also heating
The volumes of the compression chamber 2, the heating chamber 21, the compression chamber 3, etc. are, for example, 4
The size is preferably about 00 × 400 × 400 mm.

In using the volume reducing machine 1 of the present invention, FIG.
In the case of the volume reducer shown in FIG. 3, first, the pressurizing piston 11 is moved downward to partition the heating chamber 21 and the compression chamber 22 by the separating plate 12 attached to the pressurizing piston 11, and then the lid 15
After opening the container, the plastic container to be treated is charged through the raw material charging port 16, the lid 15 is closed, water is sprayed from the sprayer 5 to the container, and then the microwave heating device 4 is operated to open the container inside the heating chamber 21. Heat to soften. In the case of the volume reducer shown in FIG. 1, after the pressurizing piston 11 is raised, a plastic container is put into the heating / compression chamber 2 and sprayed with water for heating.

After microwave heating for a predetermined time,
When the plastic container inside the compression chamber 2 (or the heating chamber 21) has softened to the point where it can be plastically deformed, the operation of the microwave heating device 4 is stopped at this point. Then Figure 2
In the case of the apparatus shown in FIG. 3, the pressurizing piston 11 is raised together with the separator 12 and the extrusion piston 7 is operated by the pressure of the extrusion cylinder 8 to move the softened tray of the heating chamber 2 to the adjacent compression chamber 3.

Next, the pressure piston 11 is lowered to compress the softened plastic container to reduce its volume. When performing the operation continuously, the lid 15 is opened, the tray is inserted from the raw material input port 16, and the above operation is repeated. At an appropriate time (when the compressed container is sufficiently cooled and the next raw material container is appropriately heated in the heating chamber), the pressurizing piston is moved upward and the cylinder 14 of the take-out rod 13 is moved.
Is operated to take out the compressed product in the container, which is reduced in volume and solidified, from the bottom of the heating / compression chamber 2 (or the compression chamber 22) to the outside.

FIG. 4 is a front view showing another example of the volume reducing machine of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 4, the volume reducer 1 of the present invention may be arranged and formed so that the heating chamber 21 is located above the compression chamber 22. In this case, the raw material container may be charged from the upper part, heated in the heating chamber 2 and then dropped into the lower compression chamber 3 as it is, and compressed by the pressure cylinder 11 provided in the lateral direction in the horizontal direction to reduce the volume. .

The volume reducing device (the device shown in FIGS. 2 and 4) in which the heating chamber and the compression chamber are separated is smaller than the volume reducing device which is integrated as a heating compression chamber (the device shown in FIG. 1). Excellent capacity for processing. However, compared with the former, the latter has the effect that the volume reducer itself can be downsized and has excellent energy efficiency (because the volume can be reduced without moving the heated container). Play. Which volume reducer is used can be determined in consideration of the installation space, the volume of volume reduction processing, energy efficiency, and the like.

The compressed product in a container whose volume has been reduced by the volume reducer of the present invention is conveyed to a plastic recycling plant, crushed to a predetermined size, and then reduced in volume with an extruder or a heated air generator. A reclaimed plastic such as pellets is obtained by heating and melting using a reclaiming device such as a machine and granulating into a predetermined shape. Further, the volume-reduced container may be incinerated as it is.

In the volume reducer of the present invention, it is preferable to adjust the heating temperature, pressurizing pressure, etc. so that the volume of the plastic container is compressed to about 1/4. Even if the volume is reduced to this extent, the purpose of reducing the transportation cost can be sufficiently achieved. Further, for example, in the case of a tray made of foam, the internal air bubbles remain without being completely exhausted by the compression reduction of this degree, and in the non-foamed plastic tray, air is contained between the trays. Low horsepower crushing can be performed when crushing or the like is performed at a later reprocessing plant or the like to completely melt. Further, when the compressed plastic container is incinerated without being recycled, it has an advantage of easily burning when it contains air.

The volume reducing machine of the present invention can be used as a polystyrene foam molded product, a polyethylene foam molded product, a polyvinyl chloride foam molded product, or a non-foamed plastic container for food packaging, especially a tray-shaped container, a cup noodle container, and a bowl. It is most suitable for volume reduction of bulky shapes such as round containers and egg packs. Further, since the device can be formed in a small size and light weight, it is not limited to an installation place, and is suitable for installation in, for example, a supermarket storefront, a plastic container processing factory site, a place where tray scraps are generated.

[0031]

The operation of the volume reducer of the present invention will be described with reference to the volume reducers shown in FIGS. The water sprayed by the sprayer 5 adheres to the surface of the plastic container of the raw material placed in the heating chamber 21 of the volume reducer 1 to wet the surface. Then, when the microwave heating device 4 is operated, the moisture adhering to the surface of the plastic container is heated by the irradiation of microwaves to become steam, and the heat causes the raw plastic container to be heated and softened. The plastic container softened in the heating chamber 2 is sent to the compression chamber 22 by the extrusion device 6, and when the pressurizing cylinder 11 is lowered, the container is sufficiently softened so that it is easily compressed and its volume is reduced, resulting in a compressed product of the container. When cooled, it solidifies and is held in a compressed shape to reduce its volume.

[0032]

As described above, the volume reducer of the present invention is provided with the high-frequency applying means and the water supplying means in the heating chamber or the heating / compressing chamber, and uses the heat of the moisture heated by the high-frequency wave to make the plastic. Since the container is heated, even if the plastic container is a foam with low thermal conductivity, the container can be heated uniformly in a short time, energy efficiency is good, and volume reduction processing is performed in a short time. It can be performed.

Since the high-frequency applying means does not raise the ambient temperature, it is safer and easier to handle than an apparatus using a heater or heated air. Cooling is also smooth when cooling the heating / compression chamber or the compression chamber.

Further, since the high-frequency applying means can instantly perform the heating operation only by turning on / off the power switch in the portion for generating the high frequency, compared with a conventional device using a heating heater or dry air. The heating time is short, no residual heat is required, and when you stop using it, you can turn off the switch and almost no cooling time is required, and you can move the equipment safely and speedily. , Intermittent operation is possible.

Further, since the high-frequency applying means can easily control the heating power, the heating time and the like can be arbitrarily set and controlled according to the material of the plastic container and the like to facilitate the automation of the apparatus.

Further, since the volume reducing apparatus of the present invention is heated by a method in which the sprayed water is heated by high frequency,
Even if the container is made of a material having a low thermal conductivity such as foam, the heating does not become uneven, and the low-density and bulky container can be reliably compressed and reduced in volume in a short time.

As described above, the volume reducing machine of the present invention has a simple heating mechanism, the entire apparatus can be formed compactly, and a compact and low-cost volume reducing machine can be constructed, which has various advantages. It is possible to reduce the transportation cost when it is installed in a place and transported to a reprocessing plant or a garbage disposal site, and it is possible to improve the efficiency of collecting and reusing plastic containers.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a sectional view showing an example of a volume reducing machine of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing another example of the volume reducing machine of the present invention.

3 is a side view of the volume reducer shown in FIG. 2. FIG.

FIG. 4 is a sectional view showing another example of the volume reducing machine of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Volume Reducer 2 Heating / Compression Chamber 4 Microwave Heating Device 5 Water Atomizer 6 Extruder 7 Extrusion Piston 8 Extrusion Cylinder 9 Compressor 10 Pressurizing Cylinder 11 Pressurizing Piston 12 Separator 21 Heating Chamber 22 Compression Chamber

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A heating / compression chamber for heating and compressing a plastic container, wherein the heating / compression chamber is for compressing a high-frequency applying means, a water supplying means, and a heated plastic container. A volume reducing machine for a plastic container, characterized by comprising a compression means. 2. A heating chamber for heating the plastic container, and a compression chamber for compressing the heated container,
A volume reducing machine for a plastic container, wherein the heating chamber is provided with a high frequency applying means and a water supplying means, and the compression chamber is provided with a compressing means.