ENVIRONMENTAL-PROTECTION SHOE SOLE MADE OF COMPLETE RECYCLED SHOES

Abstract

An environmental-protection shoe sole made of complete recycled shoes is provided, which uses recycled used shoes as a primary constituent of the raw material thereof, which used shoes, after being processed to remove metal accessories mounted inside and outside the shoes, are subjected to shredding pulverization by a shredding pulverization machine and are then subjected to application steam for high temperature heating for deodorization and drying to form tiny pieces of recycled raw material, which can be used as a raw material for making shoe soles. This raw material is further mixed with a base rubber and a suitable amount of curing additives, activation prompting agents, and filling agents to form a moldable shoe sole raw material, which is put into a mold and heated and pressurized for curing and shaping, so as to realize total recycling of complete used shoes for pollution-free manufacturing of shoe soles.

Description

This is a continuation-in-part of co-pending patent application Ser. No. 11/968,662, filed Jan. 3, 2008.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

(a) Technical Field of the Invention

The present invention provides an environmental-protection shoe sole made of complete recycled shoes, which allows for collection and recycling of discarded shoes simultaneous with the sales of new shoes, and wherein the collected recycled shoes, with metal accessories attached to the shoes being removed first, are directly disposed in a shredding pulverization machine for pulverization processing of all materials of the shoes to form a particle like raw material of a suitable size and being automatically and uniformly mixed, followed by steam deodorization and drying to be further mixed a base rubber and added with curing additives and activation prompting agents, and subjected to mechanical and uniform mixing and stirring to provide a raw material having desired properties, so that the recycled shoes can be completely reused to realize pollution-free manufacturing of shoe sole for ensuring an environmentally-conservative and cycled use.

(b) Description of the Prior Art

The natural resources of the Earth are limited and regeneration of is generally difficult. It is now a major challenge of the modem human society to recycle and reuse of the wastes in order to slow down the consumption of natural resources and lower down manufacturing costs of industrial production. In the production chain of shoes, a huge amount of natural rubber is consumed and is completely obtained from plants. It is an important idea that the consumption and the sales can be made in a reversed proportion as a result of environmental protection recycling process. This makes the natural resources and materials to be cyclically and repeatedly regenerated and re-used to directly reduce the consumption of energy and material. The Earth can be benefitted from this for recovery, so that protection of the Earth can be realized. It is thus desired to have an arrangement that offers such a control over the production and sales of merchandises and after-use processing as to form a series of cycled producing-consuming chain. Namely, it is intended to collect and recycle used shoes at the same time when new shoes are sold so as to form a cycled arrangement of production for complete environmental conservation. For recycle of a complete shoe, since the materials or parts used in making a shoe include a variety of types of parts including fabric, metal accessories, plastics, and even metal plates, the processing is complicated and difficult, leading to extremely high costs for processing, so that it is generally not possible heretofore to process a complete shoe. The present invention provides processing of complete shoe, which allows for efficient and complete pulverization of the used shoes to make a raw material that can be used to mixed with other constituents for making shoe sole so as to overcome the trouble of processing used shoes and also reduce the production cost of raw material to offer an environmental-protection and economic efficacy. From the viewpoint of environmental protection chain for making shoe sole, this design of the present invention for environmental protection and providing shoe sole material can effectively reuse the recycled used shoes by converting the used shoes into a raw material for making new shoes. The advantages in respect of environmental protection and reduction of production cost of shoes are truly of long term value for environmental protection and development and also offer economic values that are worth development and research.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In view of the drawbacks of high costs and complicated processing for the manufacturing and use of the currently available environmental-protection shoe soles, the present invention aims to provide an environmental-protection shoe sole raw material made of complete recycled shoes, where the discarded shoes are collected and recycled and metal accessories are removed, and then shredding pulverization is performed on the collected discarded shoes, followed by high temperature deodorization and drying for being mixed with a suitable amount of base rubber and other constituents including additives for uniformly stirring and depositing in a mold for curing and molding in high temperature and high pressure to form an environmental-protection shoe sole having desired properties. This effectively improves the impractical situation of the existing shoe soles that are made with high costs and are not environmentally friendly.

An objective of the present invention is to provide a shoe sole made through recycling and reuse of complete discarded shoes, where the complete discarded shoes, after being processed to remove metal accessories from the shoes, are subjected to shredding pulverization to have the complete shoes pulverized to form tiny pieces of a suitable size that are totally mixed together, followed by application of water or steam for deodorization and drying for being mixed with a suitable amount of base rubber to form a shoe sole raw material for molding shoe sole, so that the manufacturing of shoe sole meets the needs for environmental protection and of economic values.

The foregoing object and summary provide only a brief introduction to the present invention. To fully appreciate these and other objects of the present invention as well as the invention itself, all of which will become apparent to those skilled in the art, the following detailed description of the invention and the claims should be read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Throughout the specification and drawings identical reference numerals refer to identical or similar parts.

Many other advantages and features of the present invention will become manifest to those versed in the art upon making reference to the detailed description and the accompanying sheets of drawings in which a preferred structural embodiment incorporating the principles of the present invention is shown by way of illustrative example.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a flow chart of a manufacturing processed used to make an environmental-protection shoe sole made of recycled shoes.

FIG. 2 is schematic view illustrating shredding pulverization used in the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

The following descriptions are of exemplary embodiments only, and are not intended to limit the scope, applicability or configuration of the invention in any way. Rather, the following description provides a convenient illustration for implementing exemplary embodiments of the invention. Various changes to the described embodiments may be made in the function and arrangement of the elements described without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims.

The present invention provides an environmental-protection shoe sole made of complete recycled shoes. The complete development of the environmental-protection shoe sole is generally a design for full shoe recycling of discarded shoes and a brief description will be given with reference to FIG. 1. The manufacturing of raw material (10) for the environmental-protection shoe sole, which features full shoe recycling, is performed by using recycled used and discarded complete shoes (11) as a main body of recycling, including general broken and discarded sports shoes, leather shoes, work shoes, and informal footwear, which can be any type of broken and discarded shoes, and both indoor and outdoor shoes can be recycled and used in the present invention. These recycled shoes comprise various shoes that are made of a combination of various substances, including EVA, PVC, TPR, and wooden heels. These recycled shoes do not need to be subjected to classification or other specific processing and only the metal accessories that are attached to the recycled shoes (11) need to be first subjected to a detaching/removing process (12) by employing a removing/cutting die. Namely, large-sized metal parts that are attached outside the shoes (11) are cut off and separated by using a proper machine that operates the die for recycling, so that the rigid metal parts will not cause damage to cutting dies in the subsequent processing and continuous processing can be carried out in a safe manner. The recycled shoes (11) from which a major portion and large-sized metal parts are removed are collected and disposed in a shredder machine (30), which is composed generally of a material hopper (31) of which the bottom is coupled to a feeding tank (32) inside which a parallel arrangement of two rotating helical cutters (33) is provided, as shown in FIG. 2. The two rotating helical cutters (33) are rotated at high speeds with various speed ratios, generally reaching a rotation speed of 600 rpm with a speed ratio of approximately 1:2.4. The complete recycled shoes (20) are disposed into the material hopper (31) and are subjected to shredding pulverization processing (13) by means of the speed difference of the helical cutters (33). Due to the rotating curves of the helical cutters, a complete recycled shoe (20), once disposed into the machine, is subjected to dual-direction shredding by various rotation to realize a result of fragmentation resembling explosion. The shredded parts are then subjected to compression and rotating shredding inside the feeding tank (32) that is of a desired length, so as to be broken into tiny pieces or powders of a particle size around 5 mmF , no limitation to the shape being required. Since the recycled shoes (20) contains fabrics, EVA, PVC, TPR or other special wooden materials, these various materials, when subjected to shredding pulverization, can be simultaneously and uniformly mixed, helping improving the phenomenon of forming plastic blocks and stretching caused by heat generated in high speed shredding plastic substances. In case that the recycled shoes contain a large amount of special thermoplastic materials, water streams or mists may be applied at the time when shredding pulverization is performed to achieve a desired effect of cooling and also to provide an additional effect of help rinsing and cleaning the parts, so that the material pieces formed by the shredding pulverization can be of desired shape of tiny particles or powders. Theses pulverized tiny pieces are then fed through a nearly enclosed tunnel-like conveying device and are subjected to high-temperature deodorization processing (14) by applying high temperature steam of 120° C., so that the recycled and pulverized shoes are so processed to be relatively cleaned and free of odors and are additionally rinsing and cleaning when subjected to wetting and evaporation of water droplets in passing through the high temperature steam. Then, drying (15) through supplying of hot air from a hot air blower and timely expelling the hot air so supplied is taken to clean the pulverized, well-mixed environmental-protection shoe sole raw material (10) to such an extent that they are free of odor and smell.

To be used to manufacture shoe soles, the shoe sole raw material (10) that is made of the recycled shoes (11) is prepared with a suitable percentage of weight, which is generally between 5-90%, for mixing with, depending on the physical properties desired for the shoe sole to be made, a base rubber (20) that is formed by mixing together natural rubber, artificial rubber additives, filling agents, which takes a ratio of 5-90%, and is disposed in a material tank of a mixer for stirring and mixing (21) to meet the desired requirements of uniform mixture through application of multiple times of mixing in a given period of time, wherein the mixture ratio is modified in accordance with the desired property of the shoe sole so made, by timely adding, among a total amount, 5-10% additives, including bridging agents, prompting agents, activating agents, aging-preventing agents, and processing facilitating agents, in order to facilitate plate pressing (22) carried out by a planar rolling machine to thereby form a plate-like material for molding shoe soles. With proper addition of the additives, the plate-like material can be rolled and forms a roll of raw material sheet to facilitate subsequent trimming and storage. The thickness of the sheet is not greater than 50 mm, and can be varied in accordance with the actual applications.

In making a shoe sole by molding, the mixed and rolled material sheet is cut to a desired size and is then positioned in a molding device for molding processing (23), which is subjected to pressurization and heating by a hydraulic machine for curing and shaping (24) thereby forming a complete, desired shape of the shoe sole. The shoe sole raw material in accordance with the present invention has been tested and inspected for at least a sample, in which the mixed, environmental-protection, recycled raw material (10) takes a percentage of 50% of the material that makes the product of shoe sole, the remaining composition being the additionally incorporated base rubber (20) in the percentage of around 45%, together with additives, such as sulfur for facilitating curing of rubber, and rubber curing prompting agents, which together take a percentage of approximately 5% and, after being mixed at a suitable ratio, is directly used for mixing with the raw material and uniformly stirred (21) for being further subjected to plate pressing processing (22) to form a roll of sheet material that facilitates stacking and winding for subsequent molding and/or cutting operation. Sheets of suitable size of the raw material (10) is disposed, in a quantitative manner, in the mold for molding processing (23) by clamping together upper and lower mold members to thereby allow for proceeding of heating and pressurizing for curing and shaping processing (24). With the assistance for curing provided by the sulfur additives and the activation caused by the curing prompting agents that are mixed in the raw material (10), the flowability of the raw material can be significantly enhanced to completely fill the internal volume of a mold cavity to complete the shaping of a shoe sole. The temperature of heating for general shoe soles is around 100-160° C. and the time period for molding is approximately 4-15 minutes. As to the mixing ratios of the compositions of the raw material, in accordance with the desired properties of the actually made shoe sole, the mixing ratio of raw material can be made different. A semi-finished product of the molding operation, after being removed from the mold, is subjected to a trimming operation to provide a trimmed and neat edge of the molded shoe sole. As such, an environmental-protection shoe sole product (25) made of complete recycled shoes is thus completed.

The environmental-protection shoe sole is primarily made of a material obtained from complete recycled shoes, wherein both indoor shoes or outdoor shoes can be simply recycled and used, and wherein, depending on the requirement of recycling processing, the rotational speeds of the helical cutters (33) used in the shredding pulverization (13) can be adjusted and water mist can be timely sprayed for cooling and cleaning in order to realize simple pulverization of complete shoe and uniform mixing, so that the degree of fragmentation or pulverization and uniformity of recycled raw material (10) can be better fit to practical needs. Through modification of the mixing ratio of the raw material with the base rubber (20) and further through adding filling agents and additional processing for contact enhancing, namely further mixing the raw material (10) with 5-10% filling agent, such as the substances of Kaolin, calcium carbonate, and glass powder, of which the ratios can be modified by adjustment of the amounts added in accordance with the requirements for hardness, reinforcement of properties in association with wear-resistance and being rigid can be realized, making the shoe sole more practical. This is similar to the manufacturing of the existing shoe sole and is not the novel part of the present invention, so that no further detail is needed herein. The features of the present invention are that the environmental-protection raw material (10) is made of a primary constituent component obtained from complete recycled used shoes, which, with only the metal accessories removed from the shoes, can be disposed in a shredder pulverization machine for pulverization (13), leading to the effectiveness of saving labor and simplifying the operation of the manufacturing process and further realizing environmental conservation by recycling and re-using discarded shoes. The whole process adds only minor extra costs and processing steps and continuous production with a manufacturing line can be realized for the manufacturing thereof, whereby the effectiveness of environmental-protection recycling, simplification, practicability can be achieved and importantly, the troublesome process that the conventional shoe recycling can only process the sole portion of the shoes and requires classifications of shoe parts is overcome. Through the full shoe recycling according to the present invention, in the manufacturing of shoe sole, the present invention is advantageous in saving labor with a practical and economic structure, and achieves real environmental protection for sustainable recycling and reusing and complete regeneration.

In the above manufacturing of the environmental-protection shoe sole according to the present invention, the raw material (10) is obtained from arbitrary shoes that are discarded and recycled, together with a suitable amount of base rubber (20) mixed together to provide the desired properties, so that the discarded shoes can be completely recycled for re-use through being shredded and pulverized thereby ensuring an environmental-protection raw material that can be cyclically and repeated regenerated. Thus, the whole manufacturing process of the shoe sole is completely done with environmentally conservative and pollution-free material, which is selectively combined with suitable amounts of curing additives and flowability prompting agents. Such additives are of minor amounts and are generally volatile substance in the curing process so that they are completely of no influence on the after-discarding recycling and processing of the shoe sole. The whole manufacturing process can be done in a continuously producing manner, requiring no particular processing technology, and can be planned and controlled with automatic manufacturing lines so that the manufacturing is automatized and continuous, and there is no needed to do manufacturing in segmentized process with additional interconnection therebetween. That is to say that the present invention provides a combination and design of shoe sole material that is of extreme novelty. A conservative estimation indicates that the overall manufacturing cost is reduced at least 15% as compared to conventional manufacturing of shoe sole. According to the present invention, discarded shoe recycling is made linking with shoe sales, making it an effective means for environmental protection and also eliminating the problem of contamination and troubles of recycling for the discarded wastes. The present invention provides a design for manufacturing, in a novel way, of environmental-protection shoe sole, which is of great economic values and offers a true value that is beyond comparison by the currently existing environmental protection shoe soles.

In summary, the present invention offers an environmental protection shoe sole that is made of complete recycled shoes by using the recycled shoes in an intact manner for shredding pulverization and mixing for subsequent processing, together with a suitable amount of base rubber, followed by adjustment and shaping, to thereby allow the shoe sole to be unlimitedly recycled and reused with the least amount of material lost, and actually providing the features of use of environmental protection substances. In the respect of material development and design, the present invention offers the advantages of reduction of manufacturing costs, simplification of manufacturing process, and enhancement of practical value.

It will be understood that each of the elements described above, or two or more together may also find a useful application in other types of methods differing from the type described above.

While certain novel features of this invention have been shown and described and are pointed out in the annexed claim, it is not intended to be limited to the details above, since it will be understood that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and in its operation can be made by those skilled in the art without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention.

Claims

1. An environmental-protection shoe sole made of complete recycled shoes, the shoe sole being manufactured by steps of mixing and stirring raw materials, molding and shaping, and trimming, characterized in that the raw material is comprised of a primary constituent of recycled shoes, which, after being subjected to removal of metal accessories, is disposed in a shredding pulverization machine for pulverization so that all shaped parts of complete shoes are pulverized and subjected to sufficient stirring through helical means to for tiny pieces of a size of 5 mmF, followed by deodorization and drying through high temperature steam and hot air cleaning and eliminating odors of the recycled shoes to thereby realize full shoe recycling for processing to form pulverized and uniformly-mixed environmental-protection shoe sole raw material.

2. The environmental-protection shoe sole made of complete recycled shoes according to claim 1, wherein the high temperature deodorization comprises feeding the material into an enclosed tunnel-like conveying device and subjecting the material to high temperature steam deodorization at a temperature approximately or above 120° C.

3. The environmental-protection shoe sole made of complete recycled shoes according to claim 1, wherein the shredding pulverization is performed through an arrangement comprising a material hopper having a bottom coupled to a feeding tank inside which parallel arranged rotating helical cutters are provided for rotating in different direction at high speeds for shredding the recycled shoes for pulverization as broken tiny pieces.

4. The environmental-protection shoe sole made of complete recycled shoes according to claim 3, wherein the helical cutters are arranged in parallel and are rotatable at different high speeds.

5. The environmental-protection shoe sole made of complete recycled shoes according to claim 3, wherein the parallel arranged helical cutters are rotated at speeds of which a ratio is 1:2.4.

6. The environmental-protection shoe sole made of complete recycled shoes according to claim 4, wherein the parallel arranged helical cutters are rotated at speeds of which a ratio is 1:2.4.

7. The environmental-protection shoe sole made of complete recycled shoes according claim 1, wherein the pulverized recycled shoes take an amount of 5-90% of the shoe sole raw material.

8. An environmental-protection shoe sole made of complete recycled shoes, the shoe sole being manufactured by mixing and stirring raw materials, molding and shaping, and trimming, characterized in that recycled shoes are used as a raw material, which takes an amount of 5-90% of shoe sole material and is further mixed with a suitable amount of a base rubber in an amount of 5-90% and further added with suitable amounts of 5-10% of additives, followed by mechanically and uniformly mixed and stirred, processed by a planar rolling device to be rolled to form sheet-like environmental-protection shoe sole material for being ready to cut and positioned in a mold for molding by being heating and pressurized for curing and shaping to thereby form a shoe sole of environmental-protection material.

9. The environmental-protection shoe sole made of complete recycled shoes according to claim 8, wherein the sheet-like shoe sole material that is formed by mixing and stirring the raw material obtained from pulverization of recycled shoes is of a thickness of 1-50 mm.

10. The environmental-protection shoe sole made of complete recycled shoes according to claim 1, wherein in mixing and stirring of the shoe sole sheet material, the material is added with filling agents including Kaolin, calcium carbonate, and glass powder to offer rigid properties of the sheet material.

11. The environmental-protection shoe sole made of complete recycled shoes according to claim 10, wherein the filling agents are of an amount of 5-10% of the stirred material.