Transitioning to a more circular economy and minimising waste is essential to develop a sustainable, low carbon, resource-efficient and competitive economy. An efficient material characterisation before recycling can boost companies’ competitiveness, creating new business opportunities and innovative, more efficient ways of producing and consuming. In a number of countries and in various industry situations, waste is already separated during the collection process: mixed plastic waste can then be sorted and separated into broad material categories (e.g. polyolefin, polyesters, vinyl, etc.) using various physical and optical methods.
XSpectra® is able to differentiate polymers with different composition and/or molecular weight. Thus, it has significant potential for improving the accuracy of sorting technology and enabling it to separate waste types.
XSpectra®’s analytical performance. This makes the new technology best suited for sorting post-consumer waste. Depending on waste source and processing technologies, it may have very different shapes/thicknesses, sizes and size distributions.
Material transparency or colour is not a problem, so XSpectra® can easily deal with clear, black, coloured or heavily filled materials (such as black/coloured plastic parts from televisions, computers, and other electronic equipment or coloured/heavy filled plastics from post-consumer automotive waste).
In addition, XSpectra® can provide data and information on material nature and composition (for example content of flame retardants or other additives) that may be key in maximising value by determining the optimal destination, use, dilution, and processing of the recycled material.
