Entwicklung eines Verfahrens und einer Anlage zum Sortieren von Altkorken

Abstract

Cork is, due to its elastic and heat insulating properties, used in industry, construction, as bottle caps and in leisure products. Price and availability of the material are the motive for cork recycling, in particular of cork bottle caps. As plastic bottle corks provide a constant and high quality, their amount at the cork collecting points has increased during the last years. As a manual separation of plastic and natural corks is very time consuming and exhausting, there is a demand on the automation of the sorting process. To meet the demands a new process and machine had to be developed. This essay presents the most important steps beginning at the research up to the realisation of a prototype.