Objective In the face of the large amounts of waste plastics being accumulated today, various methods for the proper disposal or recycling of the plastic packaging, have been developed in many European countries.Recycling is always preferable, however, in order to make it efficient or economically attractive, it is vital to sort waste plastic with an optimum purity level. The present project aims to combine Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) with Infrared (IR) spectroscopy in order to achieve high success rate in plastic waste sorting at high speeds. The activities within the fundamental research project BE-7717 have shown that LIBS can identify, with 100% accuracy, PVC and PET fractions an PP, LDPE as well as HDPE with lower accuracy with a speed of three items per second; additionally various important additives, such as heavy metals and halogens, used in plastics as flame retardants or colourants, can also be detected by LIBS. On the other hand commercially available IR spectroscopy based sensors can identify almost all plastic fractions (PP,PE,PS,PVC,PET, ABS) albeit at slow speeds. Both techniques use relatively expensive equipment, e.g. for conventional LIBS an optical multichannel analyzer with a spectrograph are needed with an average cost of more than 40000 ECU. The proposed hybrid sensor will employ relatively cheap and robust equipment, compatible with the use in industrial environment, and will combine the advantages of both techniques, in order to achieve a high accuracy sorting rate among all commercial plastic fractions (PP, high and low density PE, PVC, PET, ABS) at speeds around or beyond ten pieces per second, which is the current state-of-the-art achieved by the plastic sample singulation units. The partnership comprises 3 Research centres, 1 University department and 2 industries with complementary expertise on both the sensors and polymer technologies, as well as 2 industries involved in waste recycling, which are responsible for the exploitation of the envisaged prototype. Fields of science engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwaste managementwaste treatment processesrecyclingnatural scienceschemical sciencespolymer sciencesengineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensorsnatural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencepattern recognitionnatural sciencesphysical sciencesopticsspectroscopy Programme(s) FP4-BRITE/EURAM 3 - Specific research and technological development programme in the field of industrial and materials technologies, 1994-1998 Topic(s) 0204 - Technologies for recovering products at the end of their lifecycle Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme CSC - Cost-sharing contracts Coordinator INDUMETAL RECYCLING S.A. Address 1,camino kauka erreka 1 48150 Sondika Spain See on map EU contribution € 0,00 Participants (7) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all Bruker Analytik GmbH Germany EU contribution € 0,00 Address 13,wikingerstrasse 76189 Karlsruhe See on map FOUNDATION OF RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY - HELLAS Greece EU contribution € 0,00 Address Vasilika vouton 71110 Iraklion See on map FRAUNHOFER GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E.V.* Germany EU contribution € 0,00 Address Steinbachstrasse 15 52074 Aachen See on map FUNDACION GAIKER Spain EU contribution € 0,00 Address Parque tecnológico de zamudio edificio 202 48016 Bilbao See on map Henley Burrowes & Company Limited United Kingdom EU contribution € 0,00 Address Sunnyside road WR1 1RJ Barbourne - worcester See on map LLA UMWELTTECHNISCHE ANALYTIK UND ANLAGEN GMBH Germany EU contribution € 0,00 Address 6,rudower chaussee 6 12489 Berlin See on map ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Sweden EU contribution € 0,00 Address Teknikringen 56-58 100 44 Stockholm See on map
