Students design automated face mask recycling system

By: Gyarmati Orsolya Date: 2021. 09. 22. 08:30

Two students at the Warsaw University of Technology have won a national Dyson award for their design of a machine to disinfect and recycle surgical face masks and reduce this plastic waste.

Dubbed the Xtrude Zero, the machine is designed to take in face masks and turn out reusable plastic pellets. Once inserted into the machine, masks are cut apart and their layers (which are made of different types of plastic) are separated, then shredded. The shredded fragments are then fed into a heating element, forming a continuous strand of filament. This filament is later cut into pellets using a rotary blade. Finally, the pellets fall through a beam of UV light for disinfection before being collected in a container.

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