Method and apparatus for recovering thermoplastic from coated fabric scrap

Claim 1

A process for recovering thermoplastic from coated fabric which comprises: (a) cutting the thermoplastic coated fabric containing about 50 to 75% by weight fabric into smaller pieces; (b) cryogenically chilling said pieces of thermoplastic coated fabric until the thermoplastic becomes embrittled; (c) passing the chilled fabric into an inlet of a rotary impact mill and rotatably passing the fabric through said impact mill; (d) impacting the chilled coated fabric in said mill to liberate the thermoplastic from the fabric and discharging the liberated thermoplastic and fabric so that a minimum of 70% of the chilled fabric entering said mill is discharged before rotating past said inlet and thus preventing a build-up of fabric fluff in said mill; (e) feeding the liberated thermoplastic and fabric to a vibrational screening means having at least three decks; (f) separating the feed to said screening means into coarse fabric of greater than 16 mesh, thermoplastic fines of less than 60 mesh and a third segment of greater than 60 mesh and less than 16 mesh; (g) passing said third segment from said screening means into a gas classifying means containing a plurality of solid balls for aiding distribution of gas and in separating said third segment into fabric fines and a coarse thermoplastic product; (h) separating said third segment into said coarse thermoplastic product and said fabric fines in said classifier means by passing a carrier gas countercurrent to said third segment to sweep away said fabric fines; and (i) recovering the coarse thermoplastic product from the lower portion of said classifier.