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All plastics used in the casings of home
appliances, electric circuit boards, etc., which has undergone metal
plating is disposed off rather than recycled. Various techniques
to delaminate metal plating from plastic have been developed, but
none are widely used. Matsushita, the Japanese giant consumer electronics
manufacturing company, in collaboration with Kumamoto University
has recently developed a very interesting technique of removing
plastic film laminate from any metal surface using plasma system.
This technology can be applied not only to home appliances, but
also to automobiles and recreational facilities
The recovered film laminate would have its original properties and
would provide higher value benefits. This new process does not use
any chemicals. This technology physically separates the metal and
plastics components by applying a shock wave and heat to the metal
part through the air for an extremely short period (20 µs:
1/50,000 of a second), enabling the metal to be efficiently delaminated
and removed, while at the same time enabling the plastic to also
be recovered virtually undamaged. Because of this characteristic,
both the metal and plastic can be easily recycled and by remanufacturing
them as new parts, it becomes possible to recycle them in line with
the Matsushita objective of "products from products”.
As the delamination uses an instantaneous electric charge, rather
than a large amount of chemicals, the metal can be recovered efficiently
and at low cost, with the least possible impact on the environment.
Plating removal machinery using this technology will be produced
and released when the new process is expected to be ready for commercial
use latest by 2006.
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