Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SELEX (X-ray sensor for the recognition of polymer type, additive and fillers in black and coloured plastics for recycling and analysis)
Berichtszeitraum: 2019-12-01 bis 2020-05-31
Existing waste sorting technologies in some cases are not able in sorting an important fraction of potentially recyclable materials and in other cases recovery of raw materials is not performed in an efficient way because it is not based on direct material recognition. In particular for plastic sorting no commercial solution is able to sort black plastics and to identify the presence of additives such as Brominated Flame Retardants (BFR) and pollutants which are forbidden by EU directives on recycling. For this reason, black plastics, which represent 30-50% of plastic scraps in Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV), end up as residue and are disposed in landfills, buried or exported outside EU, producing additional costs instead of value for the recycling industry. Indeed, the recycling rate of plastics from WEEE in Europe is only 20% of the amount returned with the waste stream. For what concerns metal sorting, the automatic identification and sorting of small (< 30 mm) non-ferrous metal scraps (named Zorba) – that accounts for about 25 % of metal scraps derived from shredding of ELV and WEEE - is difficult and industry cannot recycle this waste stream with existing technologies. Therefore, this waste stream cannot be recycled but is sold as undifferentiated mixture at a very low price. Diamatex is a start-up company, founded in 2016 by three experienced physicists, to valorise and promote their invention called SELEX, working with soft X- rays, able to recognize and discriminate different materials. Thanks to an original scheme that exploits synergistically XRF, XRT and X-ray scattering, the technique developed and patented by Diamatex is able to discriminate the different polymers used in the matrix for both coloured and black plastics and provide quantitative information about presence of fillers, reinforcers, additives, stabilizers, flame-retardants, and pollutants present in the polymer matrix, including BFR. Moreover, the technology allows to detect in-line selection small (< 30 mm) non-ferrous metal scraps. This solution, identified and evaluated during the feasibility study thanks to discussions with end users and a new ad hoc prototype was developed for automatic selection of metals scraps, in order to demonstrate its feasibility and the expected performances for the in-line industrial machine. The feasibility study allowed to analyse the needs, specifications and potentials for market acceptance of the two applications and to define the development and market strategy.
Part of this feasibility study has been focused on the realization of a prototype for a fast and automated recognition of plastics and metals flowing continuously in the machine and analyse the feasibility of an industrial automatic SELEX machine for black plastic and metal sorting for recycling. For the two applications, the expected performances of the solutions once industrialized, together with an evaluation of their value propositions and market segmentations were identified. The outcomes of the technical and market feasibility analysis carried out on both applications consisted in the analysis of the industrial feasibility, advantage for the end user and market potential of the two applications and sell the different waste streams to recycling. After a comparison between these two applications, taking into account also the size and reasonable penetration in their respectful markets, the application to metal sorting was selected as priority target for development and market launch. Indeed, the application is particularly convenient for the end user and the willingness to pay is particularly high. The product development plan, the investment required, the business model and the market strategy were defined. A 5 years business plan after market launch was estimated and the external strategic partners to make this happen were identified and contacted.
X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is widely used to detect heavy impurities in materials and X-ray Transmission (XRT) as well, for selecting different kind of materials (i.e. wood, stone, glass, paper, and metals…), but do not have the capacity to discriminate in line different polymers or very small sized non-ferrous metals. The SELEX detection technique does not require any treatment of the sample and it is contactless, so can be automatized for a fast discrimination in-line for recycling. At present this device is produced in a portable version, useful for laboratory or on field quick tests, requiring only a few seconds for the analysis. However, the feasibility of in-line industrial sorting machine was confirmed. Considering the use cases of sorting black plastics and small sized non-ferrous metals, the SELEX allows the following advantages: 1) It allows to sort small non-ferrous metal scraps (below 30 mm) and black plastics in WEEE and ELV recycling, which are portion of the recycling market that is are now discarded or have very low value. 2) It operates in multi-sorting way: the machine, after the recognition through the X-ray unit, can sort many parallel outputs, each one for a given metal or polymer. Realistically, to have an industrially feasible solution, the machine can include 5 output lines associated to 5 different outputs. 3) It is very compact and relatively cheap. The availability of the machine will increase the recycling rate in Europe, reducing the plastic waste disposal or incineration and the need of raw materials.