“Sort4Circle” is the acronym of the technology that has emerged from consistent research and development and is now to be demonstrated as a pilot plant in Freiburg.
In the development project, which is funded by the state of Baden-Württemberg as part of the Invest BW funding line, the state-owned Umwelttechnik BW GmbH is also involved as an associated partner in order to support the marketability and exploitation of the results in addition to the technical development.
The development project aims to significantly increase the recycling rate of plastic waste.
The patented Sort4Circle technology differs fundamentally from today’s sorting processes, which are primarily aimed at packaging plastics and the separation and concentration of a small number of material groups. Sort4Circle®, on the other hand, makes it possible for the first time to quickly and precisely identify individual packaging and other sorting objects and assign them directly to very pure and therefore better recyclable material groups.
The technology implements three central innovations: Continuous object singulation, combined with precise detection and correct object placement into a flexible number of fractions.
A newly developed detector module simultaneously measures material characteristics such as colour, image, polymer type (using NIR technology) and fluorescent marker, which enables reliable sorting into pure fractions.
The tracer-based sorting (TBS) technology patented by Polysecure, which uses fluorescent additives to ensure reliable identification of objects regardless of their composition, is thus also being pursued further.
Polysecure is developing and building the pilot system. In this context, Pforzheim University is generating economic, technical and ecological data for the recycling of plastic streams.
In addition, the project consortium is conducting a Germany-wide collection and sorting study in order to analyse the quality and quantity of the plastic waste generated and to generate basic design data for the further development of the Sort4Circle® process.
