Office equipment for paper recycling

Abstract

An office paper recycling apparatus within a unitary body makes new office paper for use in office equipment from used office machine paper. The apparatus comprises a paper-shredding portion; a pulping portion; a paper-forming portion; a paper-press portion; a paper-drying portion; a paper-finishing portion having a means to trim the paper, a means to adjust the paper forming process by monitoring the stiffness properties and fiber orientation and a means to remove dust debris; and, a paper-collecting portion, where the new sheets are collected and stacked, ready to be used in office equipment.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation-in-part, and claims the benefit of the filing date of, prior-filed nonprovisional application No. 11 / 307,743, filed on Feb. 20, 2006, which in turn claims the benefit of the parent Italian patent application M12005A001307, filed on Jul. 11, 2005, both of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference.TECHNICAL FIELD[0002]In the field of paper recycling, self-contained office equipment that recycles discarded office machine paper to make new office machine paper.BACKGROUND ART[0003]Paper recycling is becoming increasingly important in worldwide conservation efforts.[0004]In Europe, the Confederation of European Paper Industries together with European Recovered Paper Association and the European Federation of Corrugated Board Manufacturers signed a declaration in 2000 committing the signatories to achieving a recycling rate of 56% by 2005. These parties agreed to strive for further improvements in the e...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0024]An office paper recycling apparatus makes new office paper from used office paper in a self-contained unitary body for use in an office building. The preferred embodiment of the apparatus is compact for use in an office and performs all the required process steps to convert a used sheet of office machine paper to a new, ready to use sheet of office machine paper. Portions of preferred embodiments of the apparatus feed a single sheet of used paper automatically into the apparatus; shred the paper; pulp the shredded paper by mixing with water and subjecting to it to mechanical action to become a slurry; form new paper from the slurry by spreadin

Problems solved by technology

In fact, during the last few years and despite the boom of paperless technology, office paper consumption has increased.

Paper recycling machines often suffer from dusting stemming from the sizing and finishing of a sheet of paper.

This is due to inadequacies in sheet cut-off quality, slit quality, and resulting dust removal.

Such inadequacies produce poor edge cuts, rough edges and chalk residue on the product paper.

The prior art encompasses paper recycling equipment that is not capable of producing office paper in equipment sized for office use.

The prior art of small-scale and self-contained office equipment recycles discarded paper to make new paper that is not capable of being used in office equipment.

The '290 publication does not teach a method for producing office machine quality paper.

Another significant drawback to the invention described in the '290 publication is that it does not provide all required steps for paper manufacturing, which would require a much larger device that would complicate the recycling process and be unsuitable for use in office buildings.

A significant drawback to the invention taught in the '994 publication is that it does not provide specific means able to obtain recycled paper performing in satisfactory way in office equipment as copiers, laser printers and ink jet printers.

The application has no means to control top to bottom fiber distribution or the structure and composition of the paper sheet.

In addition, there are not means to avoid dusting.

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