The European Union aims to protect the environment, through several programs like LIFE+, which was created in 2014. This program supports INSPIRE (Innovative sorting process recycling), a project whose mission is to develop solutions regarding the sorting of black polymers, in order to enhance Europe recycling rate. Waste management is the main concern in this matter.
As such, the consortium composed of Bertin Technologies and Rescoll has been tasked to produce a solution meeting very precise specifications. LIBS technology is at the core of the solution (Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy), well known of Bertin which has developed the Quantom Lab with it. Amongst those main objectives are:
- Secondary raw material production with a purity of at least 97%,
- High productivity (1T/h), allowing the use of the sorting process on an industrial scale,
- Increase of the recycling rate from 10 to 20% (leading to a reduction of the environmental impact).
The Quantom InLine is currently in operation phase, in Belgium. Rescoll engineers tested the results from the machine in order to check if the results were congruent with the specifications. It appears the Quantom InLine is, to this day, the better solution to sort black plastics.