Separation of plastic components for recycling

摘要

An improved floatation separation process wherein the improvement comprises dissolving in a floatation bath sufficient alkali metal salt or alkaline earth metal salt of a phosphate, a pyrophosphate, a metaphosphate or a polyphosphate to provide a concentration greater than 1.0 grams per cubic centimeter and generally about 1.05 to about 1.6 g/cc. A particular salt is sodium dihydrogen phosphate. Preferably, the floatation process is employed to separate physical mixtures of plastic parts.