Experimental investigation of a tribo-electrostatic separation device using linear moving electrodes

The aim of this paper is to carry out an experimental analysis of a triboelectrostatic separation device constituted of two “back-and-forth” moving horizontal plate electrodes supplied by two high-voltage DC supplies of opposite polarities. The experiments were performed using samples of micronized white pure virgin PolyVinyl Chloride particles (WPVC) and gray PolyVinyl Chloride particles (GPVC) of average size 100 µm. Moreover, a homemade method was developed to estimate the purity of the separated products. It was deduced that the separation outcome, in terms of recovery and purity, is efficient and depends on several factors: the high-voltage level, the movement speed of the electrodes, the fluidization rate and the composition ratio of the granular mixture.