What Is a Pneumatic Separation System?
A pneumatic separation system (pneumatic sorter) is used to sort impurities and foreign materials mixed in various products, raw materials, and waste materials by specific gravity, weight, size, and particle size by using a sirocco fan or similar device to generate optimal airflow.
It can be used not only for recycling processing equipment but also for upgrading a wide variety of products to improve quality and mass production. The air circulation type, which is easy to maintain, is often used, but blowing and suction types are also available.
Pneumatic Separation System Applications
Pneumatic separation systems are widely used in a variety of fields, including food, pharmaceuticals, mining, construction materials, chemical manufacturing, recycling, industrial waste, and general waste.
Examples of applications are as follows:
- Removal of foreign matter in health tea production plants
- Removal of waste debris and stones mixed in shavings, cut wakame seaweed, and dried fish
- Sorting metals with different specific gravity values at recycling processing plants
- Sorting plastics by weight
- Sorting of wood chips, resin and glass cullet
- Removing hair from raw materials in confectionery sorting lines
- Spice sorting, removal of light foreign objects on discharge conveyor
- Separation of unripe berries, guts, straw, branches, trash, etc. mixed in grains such as sesame, soybeans, buckwheat, etc.
- Separation of foreign matter, hair, etc., in herbal medicines
- Separation of large and small activated carbon and pebbles
Principle of Pneumatic Separation Systems
The pneumatic separation system utilizes the fact that when an object is free-falling, it has a specific speed (levitation speed) that cannot be exceeded due to air resistance, and when the wind blows up at the same speed as that specific speed, the object floats. When air is blown from the blower (sirocco fan) built into the pneumatic separation system and the objects to be sorted are fed from above, the heavier objects will fall to the bottom and the lighter objects will move to the top.
Even objects of the same shape and volume can float at different speeds if their specific gravity is different, and conversely, objects of the same specific gravity can float at different speeds if their shape is different. The suction type has the disadvantage that it requires more maintenance work, since the processed materials may get stuck in the suction port, but it also has the advantage that dust can be collected together, so the air quality at the work site is not deteriorated.
The sealed circulation type can discharge dust without sending it outside, and its simple structure, which requires no filtration equipment, makes maintenance easy.