Artificial Intelligence according to Pellenc ST : Increased circularity through improved sorting performance

In recent years, sorting centres have seen a gradual change in the waste stream they receive. They are now faced with larger volumes of more complex materials that are more difficult to sort. At the same time, the legislative framework is imposing increasingly ambitious recycling targets. For example, the European Green Deal requires 55% of plastic packaging waste to be recycled by 2030. This means better design for recyclability of materials, but also better sorting performance. With more technical and fragmented waste, ensuring the quality and capture of recoverable products is becoming a real challenge. 

For more than 20 years, the teams at Pellenc ST have been developing advanced sorting solutions to recover waste and support operators in their quest for performance. With today's infrared and visible spectrometry solutions, optical sorters are already able to perform advanced sorting operations such as the separation of PET trays/bottles or PET single-use trays/multi-use trays. On the other hand, for certain complex separation requirements, there is still no solution with existing equipment. 

This is where artificial intelligence comes in. At Pellenc ST, it is used intelligently alongside existing solutions to improve performance and help operators manage their industrial equipment and control quality. By combining NIR/VIS and DEEP LEARNING technologies, optical sorters gain in analysis speed and can then provide a solution to the most complex sorting tasks. Specifically, the neural network is trained with millions of images to identify the unique characteristics of objects, such as shape, size or other visual differences.

Last year, Pellenc ST launched its first artificial intelligence solutions for PE stream cleaning and complex paper/cardboard separation. Using its CNS BRAIN™ technology, Pellenc ST is now taking on a new challenge in the field of PET sorting. "We have developed a new artificial intelligence model capable of detecting transparent PET bottles covered with a sleeve or a large label, which are difficult to detect using NIR/VIS alone. Our model already detects more than 85% of sleeved bottles and we expect to exceed the 90% mark in the near future," says Kevin Alazet, Artificial Intelligence Manager at Pellenc ST. This solution also helps to reduce losses, which have fallen from 7% to less than 2%. Moreover, CNS BRAIN™ is one of the artificial intelligence options offered by Pellenc ST that does not require any additional equipment, energy consumption or maintenance. In this way, artificial intelligence can provide a real boost to competitiveness while remaining frugal in terms of its carbon footprint.

For even more difficult applications, Pellenc ST equips its machines with an additional camera and offers the AISORT™ option. This innovation opens up new applications by offering the industry new separation possibilities. The best example is food/non-food separation. Food and non-food packaging are often made from the same or very similar materials. This means that conventional sorting systems have difficulty in distinguishing and sorting this packaging. Thanks to this artificial intelligence module and multi-sensor fusion, the optical sorters supplied by Pellenc ST can now solve this problem and obtain high quality recycled products through extremely accurate sorting. 

Pellenc ST also offers quality control solutions with artificial intelligence. Installed at the end of the sorting line, AISEE™ gantries monitor the quality of the stream and the overall efficiency of the sorting centre. By providing real-time information on the composition of the stream, AISEE™ becomes a real decision-making tool. Supplemented by the support of experts in the waste industry, this data becomes intelligent and a valuable source of knowledge. Once collected and analysed, it is translated into personalised dashboards and reports that are essential for operators to guarantee the required levels of cleanliness, maintain availability rates and speed up commissioning phases. Finally, all the equipment supplied by Pellenc ST is ISO 27001 certified, guaranteeing the robustness, security and confidentiality of the data.

With these new solutions, Pellenc ST is reinforcing its offer and expanding its technological portfolio in pursuit of its mission: to help industries recover more materials and make the economy a little more circular and regenerative every day.