Design and fabrication of a mini extruder for recycling polypropylene waste bags to produce polypropylene polymer pellets

Abstract

Tones of plastics produced and used by the human beings eventually end up in the nature causing harm to living beings and the environment. The amount of plastic recycled than the plastics produced is very much less and the requirement of plastic recycling and up cycling is now an essential task. This project is about the design and fabrication process of plastic extrusion machine which can address plastic recycling. This mini extruder is just a small step in recycling the huge plastic products. The initial design consists of different components like hopper, screw, barrel, die and motor system. The plastic pellets are fed through hopper which are moved forward using the rotating screw driven by suitable sized motor. The friction between the pellets and barrel surface along with the external heat given by the band heaters melt the plastic pellets and pump through the die. If the temperature is not enough then the product is not good and fine as expected and the melt get pasted in the barrel and when different type of plastic pellet is used in extrusion, it results in the mixture of two types of plastics. So, temperature maintenance is very important. This prototype is designed in such a way that any people interested to make plastic extrusion machine can follow the procedure mentioned in this report.