SBIR Phase II: Electronic Sortation for Recycling of Post Consumer Non-Ferrous Metals

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This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will develop rapid electronic sortation of different nonferrous alloys. Phase II will design and build a near full-scale prototype from the Phase I laboratory model. The prototype will be used to test and evaluate large samples of non-ferrous alloys. Substantial benefits are expected in electronic sortation (by X-ray fluorescence) over existing methods, which use hand sorting, eddy currents, and heavy media plants. Hand sorting is expensive and labor intensive; eddy current devices are both size- and shape-dependent and do not work well with incinerated metals; and media plants are capital intensive and aggravate environmental problems. Electronic sortation may reduce capital costs and thus make nonferrous recovery more available to small businesses. The new electronic sortation technology will reduce the substantial quantities of mixed nonferrous feedstock that presently go to landfills. There are some 200 waste-to-energy facilities as well as 200 scrap yards and automobile shredders in the U.S., which could benefit from electronic sortation. The potential U.S. market for nonferrous recovery is estimated at $2.5 billion peryear. Applications of this technology internationally would substantially increase the potential market.