Removing Adhesive Impurities from Waste Glass to Regenerate into Ground Glass by High-Speed Fluid Friction Cleaning Technology

Abstract

Recycling waste glass is an important issue in the field of global environment protection and sustainable development, for which the removal of adhesive impurities on waste glass is the key. Hydraulic cleaning is the commonly used technology, which has low cleaning efficiency and produces a large amount of wastewater. Thus, it is vital to develop a green cleaning technology for waste glass. In this study, high-speed fluid friction cleaning technology was used to remove soy sauce stains on waste glass and recycle the waste glass. At 0.3 MPa, stains on waste glass were effectively cleaned by quartz sand, glass powder, and iron sand, which caused 0.017%, 0.006%, and 0.003% weight loss to the glass matrix for each 1 mm 2 of waste glass cleaning, respectively. After cleaning, the glass product can be reused as a ground glass. The ground glass prepared by a quartz sand treatment had the best properties. Movement behavior simulations of cleaning media showed that the ejection velocity of iron sand was the lowest at 62.6 m/s under 0.3 MPa, which was 13.4 and 12.4 m/s lower than that of quartz sand and glass powder. Lower ejection velocity was the main reason for the lowest weight loss of the glass matrix during the cleaning process. This paper provides a novel idea for recycling waste glass with adhesive impurities.