Sorting with X-ray Methods Fields and competencies of the Fraunhofer EZRT

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1 Fields and competencies of the Fraunhofer EZRT

2 Overview Businessfield X-Ray Technology Fraunhofer IIS

3 Overview location EZRT-Fürth A businessunit of the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Non Destructive Testing IZFP Founded 1998 About 100 people in charge Fürth, Saarbrücken, Würzburg, Deggendorf Budget: ca. 11,5 Mio. Finance > 75 % Projects < 25 % Basic funding

4 Possible applications Resources recovery (ores, diamonds, substitute fuel,..) Recycling of ELV s Disposal and recycling of municipal waste Disposal/treatment of contaminated sites (e.g. nuclear waste, landfills) Disposal/recycling of PC s, mobile phones etc., recovery of critical raw materials (Au, Pt, Ta, )

5 Task/Motivation Task: Detection of certain surface-near and hidden chemical elements or materials (diamonds in kimberlite, ash content in coal industry, iron content in iron ore, minerals, copper in steel scrap,...) Problem: So far, there are no technological solutions that fully satisfy the needs of the mining-/recycling industry In the diamond industry optical flourescence is used for diamond detection, for example (state of the art) Possible solutions : X-ray fluorescence analysis, dual-energy X-ray methods

6 Methods X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF) XRF detectors X-ray source top: typical copper fraction in steel scrap, bottom: principle of online-xrf Strong demand for a way to sort effienctly, apart from established sensor technologies Improved sorting quality/higher purity of the sorted bulk material by using XRF Example: steel scrap Conveyor belt Sorting by the content of copper to increase the quality of steel scrap Later adaptation to other sorting tasks possible (e.g. pollutant detection, ore recovery, glass sorting) Combination with other sensors (NIR, RGB, X-ray dual-energy, ) possible

7 Methods Dual-Energy The energy dependency of the (X-ray) absorption coefficient of a material is different for every material The information got from energy resolved (»spectral«) measurements allow for a calculation of material specific properties Different methods: Measurements with mono-chromatic X-ray sources (difficult to realise in industrial environment) r Z projection»q-image«method (need of reference data, not quantitative) Fraunhofer EZRT method BMD (quantitative method)

8 Methods Dual-Energy Signal processing chain with Fraunhofer EZRT s dual energy algorithm

9 Examples Dual-Energy Example 1: detection of diamonds Signal level (S = 1.9 g/cm 2 ) Noise level (N = 0.7 g/cm 2 ) holes low energy high energy diamand image (CNR = (S-N)/N = 1.7) Kimberlite grain size: mm, diamond size: 6-7 mm, object velocity: 1 m/s

10 Examples Dual-Energy Example 2: coal treatment Objectives: Sorting out of Country rocks Coal with not flammable layers Classification in terms of the individual ash-content Ash-content ~ 100 % Ash-content ~ 25 % Ash-content ~ 3 % Dual-energy image: country rock Dual-energy image: coal of medium quality Dual-energy image: coal of high quality Shown is the ash-content in each image. The higher the value is, the higher is the ash content

11 Examples Dual-Energy Example 2: detection of bromine-contaminated plastics (bromine content ca. 10 %) and differentiation from bromine-free plastics (ABS/PS) Raw images: bromine-free brominecontaminated ABS+Br ABS PS+Br PS ABS+Br ABS PS+Br PS radioscopy low energy radioscopy high energy

12 Examples Dual-Energy Example 2: detection of bromine-contaminated plastics (bromine content ca. 10 %) and differentiation from bromine-free plastics (ABS/PS) Result images: BMD result»plastics image«bmd result»bromine image«br-content: ~ 8,4 % Br-content: ~ 5,5 % Bromine concentration

13 Product Dual-Energy Module HE First experiments Demonstrator setup Prototype Industrial operational system LE Objectives Realisation of a»ready-forindustry«dual- Energy module for recycling and mining In general: Improvement of the achievable sorting quality Components Basis Material Decomposition (BMD) software X-ray tube Dual-energy X-ray detector Shielding and mechanics Appropriate Interface Features Applicable for belts and chutes Typical object velocities (up to 3 m/s) Use of a new dual-energy algorithm, developed by the EZRT Signalprocessing chain low energy and high energy image BMD (information about spectra, materials, detector) material 1 and material 2 image Evaluated applications (is permanently continued) Diamonds Iron ore Industrial used coal Flourspar/ quartz Plastics Al-alloys.