Installation and process for sorting textile fiber-based materials

Abstract

An installation for sorting textile fiber components to be recycled into at least one material and / or at least one color is characterized in that all components to be sorted are conveyed to a cutting installation. The cutting installation is arranged to cut the components into pieces, and means are provided for transferring the cut pieces from the cutting installation to means for detecting the material or materials constituting each piece and / or the color or colors of each piece. Pieces detected as being made of at least one material and / or color are sent to output conveying means to obtain a collection point, while pieces detected as not being made of at least one material and / or color are not sent to output conveying means. Figure for the abbreviation: Fig. 1

Description

Title of the invention: Installation and method for sorting textile fiber-based elements

[0001] The present invention relates to an installation and a method for sorting items made from textile fibers, in particular clothing, especially used clothing, with a view to recycling the textile fibers.

[0002] It is already known to sort used clothing according to the textile fiber composition of these clothes, in particular by near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy detection systems, which make it possible to determine the IR spectrum of the garment and consequently its composition, for example whether it is 100% cotton, 50-50 cotton polyester, 70-30 cotton polyester or similar.

[0003] However, these sorting facilities suffer from a great deal of inaccuracy regarding the compositions detected, in particular because the clothes subjected to infrared are only detected in terms of their materials and / or colors in their outer parts, while inner parts, for example pockets or linings, which are not detected, may not be of the same material and / or color, which distorts the results of the detection and the sorting that follows.

[0004] We also know from application FR number 2313285 of 29 November 2023 in the name of the applicant, a complicated sorting installation implementing a prior NIR detection, followed by a cutting of the sorted elements into pieces for the first time, followed by a second sorting of the pieces by NIR detection.

[0005] The present invention aims to overcome the drawbacks of the prior art by providing an installation and a method for sorting textile elements, in particular clothing, which is simpler to implement while allowing sorting of the same quality.

[0006] According to a first aspect of the invention, a sorting installation for elements made from textile fibers to be recycled into at least one material and / or at least one color, for example into cotton, in particular clothing, is characterized in that all the elements to be sorted are conveyed into a cutting installation, the cutting installation being arranged to cut the elements into pieces, in particular each having a respective surface area, measured on one side only, of less than 400 cm2, preferably between 25 and 100 cm2, and means are provided for passing the cut pieces from the cutting installation to means for detecting the material or materials constituting each piece and / or the color or colors of each piece, in particular IR detection means, in particular NIR, Pieces detected as being in at least one material and / or color are sent to output conveying means to obtain a deposit, while pieces detected as not being in at least one material and / or color are not sent to output conveying means.

[0007] Thus, according to the invention, by making the cuts directly on the items to be sorted, without prior sorting, and in particular without prior IR or NIR sorting, in particular following pieces of various shapes, for example tiles, of small dimensions, for example having a surface (measured on one side only) preferably less than 400cm2, in particular between 25 and 100 cm2, for example of the order of A5 sheets, the inventors of the present invention realized that it was possible to do without prior sorting before cutting into pieces, without significantly harming the quality of the final sorting.

[0008] According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, which in itself is likely to constitute a second aspect of the invention independent of the first aspect but which can be favorably combined with it, after the cutting installation and before the detection means, a removal / elimination installation is provided, among the pieces of the elements of the first deposit, of those which incorporate parts of high-density material, in particular buttons, buckles, zips or the like, in particular by a gravity separation of the pieces according to their weight.

[0009] Preferably, and according to a feature which in itself constitutes another aspect of the invention independent of the aspects of the invention described above, and which could thus be the subject of an invention as such, at least one conveyor in the sorting line comprises an endless unwinding belt of which at least one upper strand is arranged inclined upwards, hooking means, for example hooks, spikes or the like, projecting from the belt of the endless unwinding belt, the projections being arranged at a distance from each other so as to hook element after element or piece after piece, thus ensuring that the elements are not conveyed in a superimposed manner, in particular an infeed conveyor in the detection means comprises an endless unwinding belt of which at least one upper strand is arranged inclined upwards, hooking means, for example hooks, spikes or the like,protruding from the belt of the endless unwinding conveyor, the protrusions are arranged at a distance from each other so as to catch piece after piece, thus ensuring that the pieces are not conveyed overlapping.

[0010] According to a preferred embodiment of the invention, the pieces of the deposit are transported, in particular in the form of bales, to a shredding installation.

[0011] The present invention also relates to a method for sorting elements made from textile fibers into at least one material and / or color to be recycled, for example into cotton, comprising the steps in which: - we take a set of elements made from textile fibers; - they are passed through a cutting facility, in which the elements are cut into pieces, for example having a surface area (measured on one side only) preferably less than 400 cm², in particular between 25 and 100 cm², for example in the form of tiles; and - the pieces resulting from the cutting are passed through means of detecting the material or materials constituting each piece to be sorted and / or the color or colors of each piece to be sorted, in particular means of detection by IR, in particular NIR, depending on the infrared spectrum, in particular near infrared, of the material or materials of each piece to be sorted; - Depending on the detection result, the pieces detected as being made of at least one material and / or color are grouped into a deposit.

[0012] According to a preferred embodiment, before passing through the detection means, a separation is carried out on the cut pieces, separating them from those containing parts made of a high-density material, in particular buckles, zippers, buttons, decorations and the like, in particular by gravity separation, and only the pieces without parts made of a high-density material are sent to the detection means.

[0013] According to advantageous embodiments, the conveying means at the entry and / or exit of the cutting installation, and / or the detection means and / or the separation installation may be conveyors, in particular endless conveyors, and / or include pneumatic and / or aerodynamic means, in particular pneumatic and / or aerodynamic hoses.

[0014] By way of example, a preferred embodiment of the invention is described with reference to the figures, in which an installation and a method according to the invention are schematically illustrated.

[0015] In [Fig. 1], an installation is described according to an embodiment of the invention, in which a cutting into pieces and a sorting step are carried out in succession.

[0016] In [Fig.2], a part of the installation described in [Fig.1] is described in more detail.

[0017] In [Fig. 1], the 13 bales of clothing to be sorted or individual garments are introduced into a cutting installation 14, like a guillotine, in which each garment is cut into pieces of various more or less regular shapes approaching a square or rectangle, preferably with a dimension smaller than 400cm2, notably between 25 and 100cm2, to obtain strips which are then sent under a second guillotine 15 making a vertical back and forth movement to obtain the targeted pieces of small size on the surface.

[0018] The cutting installation 14,15 is implemented to ensure that the pieces are preferably in the shape of a square or rectangle, but taking into account the hazards, in particular related to the passages, on the one hand from the unpacking station to the first cutting station and on the other hand from the first to the second cutting station, which tend to orient the cut elements randomly, the shapes of the pieces can be very diverse, generally in the form of regular or irregular polygons.

[0019] These pieces are then transferred to a separation system for pieces containing high-density material elements, such as zippers, buttons, buckles, and other decorations, particularly metal ones. The system performs this separation in two gravity separation stations 16, 16' arranged one after the other. Pieces without high-density material elements are lighter and can thus be drawn upwards by a suction nozzle, while pieces with high-density elements cannot be drawn upwards due to their weight and thus fall downwards to be grouped and rejected and / or reprocessed to recover, if desired, the materials, particularly metal, from the high-density elements.

[0020] The light pieces, i.e. made up solely or substantially solely of textile fibres, are then transferred into a gantry 6 NIR to carry out a second sorting to obtain R, N, B deposits.

[0021] This 6-channel NIR gantry, well-known in the field, directs an IR light beam onto the detected piece and determines its respective NIR light spectrum based on the beam reflected by the detected piece onto a suitable sensor of the 6-channel NIR gantry. Reference may be made, in particular, to document DE19920592A1 for a detailed description of this type of NIR gantry.

[0022] Thus, each piece can be sorted according to its spectrum. In particular, the composition of this piece can be determined, for example, whether it is made of cotton, polyester, a cotton and polyester blend, and / or any other material.

[0023] A plurality of ejection nozzles, not visible in the figure, are positioned directly downstream of the gantry 6 NIR and, via a central control system 7, connected to the gantry 6 and the nozzles, eject the pieces to send them, each according to their respective material(s) determined by their respective spectrum, to three transverse output conveyors 8, 9, 10 to thus form three deposits R, N, B.

[0024] Depending on the material detected by the NIR gantry 6, the nozzles either eject downwards by blowing the pieces intended to fall immediately at the exit of the gantry 6 conveyor into the first deposit R, or perform no action on the pieces intended to fall into the second deposit N, or give an impulse to send the pieces intended to fall into the third deposit B.

[0025] Thus, in the example shown, the pieces are sorted into three categories, defined in advance by the user according to the material composition, a first category R consisting of pure cotton, a second category N consisting of a mixture of cotton and polyester, and a third category B consisting of everything that is not cotton or cotton and polyester.

[0026] Once the pieces of cotton have been obtained, they are passed through a shredding installation to recover the fibers.

[0027] In [Fig. 2], a loader 30 is shown for distributing pieces that can be placed, in particular as shown in [Fig. 1], at the entrance of a gravity separation unit 16' and / or the NIR gantry for the second NIR detection. It could also be placed at the entrance of the gravity separation unit 16 and / or at the entrance of the detection gantry 6 and / or at the entrance of the cutting unit.

[0028] This loader 30 comprises a horizontal, smooth, endless infeed conveyor 31 onto which the pieces to be processed (e.g., gravity separation or IR detection) are deposited (for example, by another endless outfeed conveyor from the cutting unit) at the loader's exit. Following the infeed conveyor 31 is a spiked endless conveyor 32. This endless conveyor 32 extends around three rollers: a lower roller 33, an upper roller 34, and a front roller 35.

[0029] The conveyor belt 32 comprises a first strand 36 extending between the lower roller 33 and the upper roller 34, inclined upwards, in particular at an angle greater than 45° to the horizontal direction of the infeed belt, in particular at an angle greater than 60°, for example 75°. A second strand 37 extends between the upper roller 34 and the front roller 35, being substantially vertical. A third strand 38 extends between the front roller 35 and the lower roller 33, the three strands 36, 37, and 38 following one another to form the endless conveyor belt.

[0030] The upper roller 34 has a larger diameter than the lower roller 33 and the front roller 35.

[0031] The front roller 35 is at an intermediate height between the height of the lower roller 33 and that of the upper roller 34. The outer surface (opposite the rollers) of the mat made up of the three strands has points 39 that protrude from the mat, oriented so as to be able to hook a piece at the level of the roller 40 at the front end of the infeed conveyor 31. Each point can thus draw upwards an individual piece taken from the end roller 40 and release it after the upper roller 34 to make it fall through an outlet opening 50 of the loader, the pieces thus falling in a rain downwards through this opening onto an upstream conveyor introducing them, well separated from each other, into a further processing station, such as a gravity separation station or an NIR detection station.

[0032] Two outer rollers, 42 rear and 43 front, are arranged respectively upstream and downstream of the upper roller 34. The rear roller 42 is arranged to prevent several pieces from being caught by the same point of the conveyor belt 32, thus preventing more than one piece from passing at a time. The front roller 43 is arranged to prevent pieces from remaining caught on points of the pointed conveyor belt 32, thereby ensuring that the pieces detach cleanly from the belt 32 and fall into the opening 50.

[0033] The two outer rollers 42 and 43 preferably have the same diameter, have pointed parts protruding from their periphery and rotate in opposite directions, the rear outer belt 42 preferably rotating in the same direction as the pointed belt 32.

[0034] An example with three deposits has been described above. However, while remaining within the scope of the present invention, different numbers than three can be chosen, in particular only two or, on the contrary, more than three, for example four or five.

[0035] In the embodiment described in the figures, sorting is carried out according to the material of the textile fibers to be sorted for recycling. Sorting according to the invention could also be performed with an installation according to the invention, either as a replacement for sorting according to material or as a complement to it. For sorting colors, an optical visualization device is preferably used, in particular cameras that allow for easy color detection and therefore sorting.

Claims

Demands

1. A sorting installation for items made from textile fibres to be recycled into at least one material and / or at least one colour, for example into cotton, in particular clothing, characterized in that all items to be sorted are conveyed into a cutting installation (14, 15), the cutting installation being arranged to cut the items into pieces, in particular each having a respective surface area, measured on one side only, of less than 400 cm2, preferably between 25 and 100 cm2, and means are provided for passing the cut pieces from the cutting installation to means for detecting the material or materials constituting each piece and / or the colour or colours of each piece, in particular infrared (IR) detection means (6), in particular near-infrared (NIR), the pieces detected as being in at least one material and / or colour being sent to output conveying means,to obtain a deposit (R; N; B), while pieces detected as not being in at least one material and / or color are not sent to the output conveying means.

2. Installation according to claim 1, characterized in that the means (6) for detecting the material or materials constituting each piece to be sorted are near-infrared (NIR) detection means allowing the material or materials constituting the piece to be sorted to be detected according to its spectrum (NIR).

3. Installation according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the pieces each have a respective surface area, measured on one side only, of less than 400 cm2, preferably between 25 and 100 cm2.

4. An installation according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that, after the cutting installation (14, 15) and before the detection means (6), there is a separation installation (16, 16') for separating, among the pieces of the first deposit, those which incorporate parts of high-density material, in particular buttons, buckles, zips or the like, in particular by a gravity separation of the pieces according to their weight.

5. An installation according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that an inlet conveyor in the detection means (6) includes an endless unwinding conveyor belt (32) of which at least one upper strand (36) is arranged inclined upwards, hooking means, for example hooks, spikes or the like, protruding from the band of the endless unwinding conveyor belt, the protrusions being arranged at a distance from each other so as to hook piece after piece to ensure that the pieces are not conveyed in a superimposed manner.

6. An installation according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that an infeed conveyor in the cutting installation (14, 15) comprises an endless unwinding belt (32) of which at least one upper strand (36) is arranged inclined upwards, hooking means, for example hooks, spikes or the like, protruding from the belt of the endless unwinding belt, the protrusions being arranged at a distance from each other so as to hook element after element to ensure that the elements are not conveyed in a superimposed manner.

7. An installation according to any one of claims 4 to 6, characterized in that an infeed conveyor in the separation installation (16, 16') comprises an endless unwinding belt (32) of which at least one upper strand (36) is arranged inclined upwards, hooking means, for example hooks, spikes or the like, protruding from the belt of the endless unwinding belt, the protrusions being arranged at a distance from each other so as to hook piece after piece to ensure that the pieces are not conveyed in a superimposed manner.

8. A method for sorting items made from textile fibers into at least one material and / or color to be recycled, for example into cotton, in an installation according to one of the preceding claims, comprising the steps in which:

9. - we take a set of elements made from textile fibers; - they are passed through a cutting facility, in which the elements are cut into pieces, for example having a surface area (measured on one side only) preferably less than 400 cm², in particular between 25 and 100 cm², for example in the form of tiles; and - the pieces resulting from the cutting are passed through means of detecting the material or materials constituting each piece to be sorted and / or the color or colors of each piece to be sorted, in particular means of detection by infrared (IR), in particular near infrared (NIR), according to the infrared spectrum, in particular near infrared, of the material or materials of each piece to be sorted; - depending on the result of the detection, the pieces detected as being in at least one material and / or one color are grouped into a deposit (R; N; B). The method according to claim 8, characterized in that, before passing through the detection means (6), a separation is carried out on the cut pieces, from those pieces comprising parts made of a high-density material, in particular loops, zips, buttons, decoration and the like, in particular a gravity separation, and only the pieces without parts made of a high-density material are sent into the detection means (6).