To approach this project we have been working with the enterprise Corepa, that belongs to the group Derichebourg and which is situated in Pagny-­‐sur-­‐Meuse. This enterprise separates all the plastics received from all France for afterwards doing a revalorization and reuse of them. It mainly receives the rest of the grinding of the VHU (Vehicles out of use) and DEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), like the PAM (Small Electronic Devices) and the GEM (Big Electrical Appliances). The separation processes used are based on physicals and chemicals proprieties of the materials. They use methods such as flotation, which takes into account the density, the method of separation by «over-­‐band », which considers the magnetic characteristics and the infra red-­‐light, that considers the optic characteristics. The principal plastics that are valorised are: the PP (Polypropylene), the PS (Polystyrene), the HIPS (High Impact Polystyrene) and the ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene). Although the separation process is really controlled, there are still some problems that subsist and which we will try to solve, such as: -­‐ The efficacy of each operation individually is not known. We can observe, for example, some additives, such as colour or flameproof, can alter the physicochemical properties of the plastics. Having influence in the flotation and optical separation. -­‐ The quality of what goes out is also not known. This is a fundamental parameter, as it can help us to a better revalorization and the enterprise in consequence can have an economical gain. During the elaboration of the project we have had to face two big problems. The first one, is how can we characterize our samples, and how can we do for our sample to be representative of all the entire lot. For facing this, we have picked up from four different places some plastics and afterwards we have analysed them. In what concerns the sampling part, we have managed to get all the samples needed, before and after the infrared light, in order to verify its efficacy. Firstly, we have realized an random sampling, followed by the separation of the mass by quartering. We will explain these topics all along the report. For the characterization, we have mainly used two methods: Raman and infrared spectroscopy. Our school and the BWTEK society afforded both of them. Using these two methods we have obtained to some experimental results, however the lack of time has made us unable to characterize all our samples. Finally, we have used the program of treatment of data R to extrapolate our results to our samples and characterize our batch. To conclude, the principal objective of this project is to obtain some results for the enterprise, so the enterprise can see if their methods used are rentable or not.

Outgoing