Industrial sorting and foreign object detection for bulk goods

No matter if it is about quality control and sorting of food in the production process or about reliably closing material cycles during recycling; no matter if you want to separate good from bad grapes, medicinal from poisonous plants, or if you want to separate different plastic, glass or mineral fractions: Our optical sorting technology makes it possible. The only prerequisite is that the material to be sorted is in granular form, the grain sizes are almost arbitrary (from fine-grained in the range of 1-2 millimeters up to about 50 millimeters).

 

The basic process and functional principle: In the laboratory, we first find out which, if necessary, multi- or hyperspectral information can be used to reliably distinguish the fractions. Appropriate cameras then record the sorting of bulk goods on the conveyor belt, on a chute or in free fall. Our software detects and classifies each grain in real time and controls blow-out nozzles, with the help of which the grain can be influenced in its trajectory at the right moment and directed into the right collecting container. Once the preliminary and development work has been completed, this works fully automatically, reliably and quickly. Typical conveyor belt speeds are around 3 m/s.

Sorting of bulk goods in the practice

 

Food quality through sorting systems

Control and sorting in every process chain of production. In addition to established RGB technology, cameras that operate in the ultraviolet or infrared wavelength range are increasingly being used.

 

BauCycle

The Fraunhofer project "MAVO BauCycle" carries out recycling of fine-grained construction waste. 

 

Recycling

In order to close material cycles in a sustainable way, a highly selective material preparation is necessary. Our technology sorts building rubble, broken glass, plastics and more.

 

Our test systems

The FlexSort and TableSort® sorting systems are transportable bulk material sorters and can therefore be used for on-site experiments and enable the reliable separation of material flows.