The air knife’s main function is to remove low value fractions from the material stream. Typically installed at a conveyor junction, the air knife consists of an input air volume channelled through an adjustable nozzle, working in conjunction with an extraction hood, all mounted inside a single enclosure. The air knife is employed to remove lightweight unpickable items such as paper, plastic and foil from the material stream. The input air creates a high velocity airstream through which the falling material has to travel. The lighter material fractions are blown or separated from the falling material and are captured by the extraction hood and conveyed away. The heavier material is unaffected by the incoming airstream and falls onto the conveyor below. Our air knife system can be adapted and applied to a wide variety of material streams including, domestic comingled recyclables and C&D recycling
operations.