Patent 7659320 was granted and assigned to Interface, Inc. on February, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The invention relates to a method for recovering nylon from a nylon-containing material by contacting the nylon-containing material with an alkanol-containing solvent at elevated temperature and at a pressure higher than the equilibrium pressure of the alkanol-containing solvent at the elevated temperature, thereby dissolving the nylon in the alkanol-containing solvent, removing the alkanol-containing solvent containing dissolved nylon from any undissolved solids, and decreasing the temperature of the alkanol-containing solvent containing dissolved nylon to precipitate the dissolved nylon.