Use case · WEEE and batteries
Batteries first,
then the value.
On an electronic waste stream the first job is not value, it is safety. Lithium cells are a fire risk in storage and in the shredder, and setting them aside beforehand is an obligation rather than a matter of judgement.
Up to 1 t/h
Throughput, with the fraction and the piece size
Up to 98 %
Battery extraction rate, confirmed on your material during the performance study
10 – 200 mm
Particle size, overlapping pieces accepted
1 – 4
Robots, sized to the contaminant
The stream
Before the shredder,
while the pieces are still whole.
Once an appliance has gone through the shredder, a battery inside it is no longer a battery: it is a hazard spread through the whole load. The measurement therefore sits upstream, on pieces that are still recognisable, either on the incoming stream or on a fraction that has already been screened.
| Where it comes from | Upstream equipment | Particle size | Battery-bearing pieces |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small domestic appliances, IT and telecom | Manual pre-sorting, screening | 10 – 200 mm | Measured in the study |
| Screened WEEE fraction | Trommel and density separation | 10 – 120 mm | Measured in the study |
| Collection mixed with lithium devices | Pre-shredder, on the incoming stream | Measured in the study | Measured in the study |
What we take out
The hazard first,
then the price.
The same pass does two jobs. X-ray transmission sees the cell inside a casing that a camera reads as plastic, and the robots set those pieces aside. What follows is the value: connectors, pins and populated boards are a small share of the weight of a WEEE lot and a large share of its price.
Category
What identifies it
Li-ion batteries
X-ray transmission and 3D profile
NiMH batteries
X-ray transmission and 3D profile
Ni-Cd batteries
X-ray transmission and 3D profile
Copper meatballs
Colour camera and AI
Circuit boards
Colour camera and 3D profile
Capacitors
X-ray transmission and 3D profile
Aluminium
Density, colour and, with LIBS, the alloy
Remaining stream
What the pass leaves on the belt
The line
Extract, then split.
Extraction
Matvision Refine, when the job is to take out what is hazardous or what carries the value and let the rest run.
Full sorting
Matvision Grade, when the fractions have to be split into families a buyer prices separately.
Traceability
Each output leaves with its own composition, and with the software version, model and thresholds behind the figures. The extraction can be shown to have happened.
Machines
The machines for this stream.
Refine removes what does not belong. Grade separates everything that has value.
To characterise the stream before deciding: Matvision Sense ↗
What a performance study measures
Your material, your numbers.
The figures on this page are upper bounds. Your battery extraction rate is measured on your own stream, against the way your collection is made up, and written into the offer with the reporting that goes with it. The rest of the study covers what the same pass can recover once the stream is safe.