Canon enters recycling market with new sorting equipment launch

Canon will launch TR-S1510 – new plastic sorting equipment with tracking Raman spectroscopy technology to sort all plastic pieces, even when black plastic pieces are mixed with other colors.

TR-S1510 is a new plastic new plastic sorting equipment with tracking Raman spectroscopy technology.

As recycled plastics have to maintain a certain degree of purity, materials made of plastic waste, such as ABS and polypropylene, must be accurately identified. However, black plastics, often used in home electronics or automobile upholstery, do not transmit or reflect visible light, making it difficult to identify the materials using conventional near-infrared spectroscopy.

Canon combines Raman spectroscopy with a track mechanism to solve this issue. Raman spectroscopy is a detection method that utilizes laser light to illuminate plastic pieces to obtain molecular information of the substance, thereby enabling the material detection.

Internal view of TR-S1510.

The tracking Raman spectroscopy technology scans laser light towards the pieces, ensuring enough measurement time required for each piece of plastic according to its color and achieving high speed and high accuracy overall.

This innovative material identification technology maintains a conveyor speed of 1.5 meters per second and can sort up to 1 ton of plastic per hour. It can even be customized according to throughput and installation space by changing the module which tracks and measures the plastic pieces or the combination of conveyor belts.

TR-S1510 tracks and measures black plastic pieces on conveyor.

With the launch of this product, Canon marks its entry into the recycling system market with the aim to build a circular economy by maximizing material recycling.