Trace-in-Metal Ltd, a new, unique and resilient method of providing traceability of metals throughout the recycling process, primarily aimed at reducing the incidence of metal theft and lowering its impact on the UK economy. Project type Development

英国警察局长协会在2011年宣布，金属盗窃给英国造成了7.7亿英镑的损失。英国交通警察（BTP）在同一时期报告了2000起金属盗窃事件，而铁路网估计每年的损失为1600万英镑（BTP公报）。金属盗窃是对国家基础设施的公认威胁，并对英国经济产生负面影响。此外，由于屋顶上的铅被盗，不可替代的文化遗产正在被破坏。教会保险公司是英国圣公会超过16000座建筑的主要保险公司，2011年有2500起索赔。当时已经使用了几种标记方法，但由于从教堂中盗窃铅和其他金属的行为越来越多，这些方法根本不起作用。2011年10月，公司创始人举行了一次会议，提出了一种技术的想法，这种技术可以使金属永久标记，即使在熔化后也可以追溯到来源。一开始是担心历史建筑中的铅被盗，最初的技术是专门为打击这种盗窃而开发的。铅是一种柔软的金属，用于屋顶，被选择作为证明这一概念的金属，但有一个明确的目标，即找到其他金属（如铜和铝）的标记方法。这些标记旨在包含有助于废金属经销商（smd）区分偷来的金属和合法获得的金属的信息，携带可用于从标记点跟踪金属的信息，协助执法机构起诉那些偷窃或购买被盗金属的人，并起到威慑盗窃的作用。为了防止被小偷偷走（隐蔽标记），标记或标识符应融合在金属中，并尽可能不可见。我们的目标是通过一种新型的基于气枪的弹道融合过程来实现这一目标，该过程公开标记金属表面，以增强检索，并返回到源头进行检测。

The Association of Chief Police Officers announced in 2011 that metal theft cost the UK £770million. The British Transport Police (BTP) reported 2000 incidents of metal theft over thesame period with Network Rail estimating the cost to £16 million every year (BTP bulletin).Metal theft is a recognised threat to national infrastructure and has a negative impact on theUK economy. In addition, irreplaceable cultural heritage was being destroyed following wateringress as a result of lead being stolen from roofs. Ecclesiastical Insurance, the main insurerfor the Anglican Church’s over 16000 buildings, had 2500 claims in 2011. Several markingmethods were already being used, but were simply not working as theft of lead from churchroofs and other metals was increasing. A meeting was held in October 2011 by the companyfounders to come up with ideas for a technology that would enable the permanent marking ofmetals that would be traceable back to source even after melting. The starting point wasconcern about lead being stolen from historic buildings and the initial technology wasspecifically developed to combat such theft. Lead, the pliable, soft metal used for roofs, waschosen as the metal to prove the concept with, but with a clear objective to find markingmethods for other metals such as copper and aluminium.The markers aim to contain information that would help scrap metal dealers (SMDs) todifferentiate stolen from legitimately acquired metal, carry information that could be used totrack metal from point of marking, assist law enforcing agencies in prosecuting those eitherstealing or buying stolen metals and also act as a deterrent to theft. To prevent removal bythieves (covert marking) the markers, or identifiers, should be fused in the metal and be asinvisible as possible. We aim to achieve this via a novel air rifle based ballistics fusionprocess that overtly tags the surface of a metal for enhanced retrieval, and detection back tosource.