A manually operated paper-recycling machine was designed and fabricated. This was done to enable waste paper conversion into useful product. The fabricated plant consists of six major component units that include the disc refiner, the hydropulper, the head box, the felt conveyor, the driers and the rollers.
From the results of experimental analysis carried out on the study, it was discovered that for every 0.1kg of used paper fed into the refiner, about 7000ml of water is required to defibre it, and about 0.2 kg of starch adhesive is required. The calculated volume of the refiner, hydropulper and head box is 11795.62cm3, 62930.47cm3 and 60979.096cm3 respectively. The fabricated machine is capable of producing 7.6 kg of recycled paper from 10 kg of used paper.
Introduction
Paper is one of the most important products ever invented by man. Widespread use of a written language would not have been possible without some cheap and practical material to write on. The invention of paper means that more people would be educated because more books would be printed and distributed. Industry would grow because all the plans, blueprints, records and formulae it uses would be written down and saved, together with the printing press, paper provided an extremely important way to communicate knowledge.
The primary source of raw material for production of paper is vegetable fibers, obtained mainly from plants. To ensure that the forest is not depleted of these woods, there is need to provide alternative source of raw materials, this therefore leads to the invention of the process of recycling. Recycling, which is the extraction and recovery of valuable materials from scrap or other discarded materials, is employed to supplement the production of paper.
The designing and fabricating of a used paper recycling plant is therefore a welcome development as it will ensure that the source of raw material for paper production is multiplied and also waste paper that could have constituted into wastes are recycled for various productive purposes. Designing a manually operated paper recycling plant ensures that a cheap and non-complex method of production of paper product is guaranteed. This is the objective of this paper.
Source: Leonardo Electronic Journal of Practices and Technologies
Author: M. A. OLUTOYE
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