Tomra to bring new tech to NPE

The Tomra Recycling business unit of Norway-based Tomra ASA will feature some of its latest sorting innovations for the plastics industry at the NPE 2024 trade show May 6-10 in Orlando, Florida.

Staff at the Tomra booth will preview the company's latest artificial intelligence (AI) technology, which it says is based on deep learning and available for cleaning recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) material streams.

Tomra also will offer insights into updates available on its recently introduced InnoSort Flake and AutoSort Flake machines.

The company says GainNext is its latest breakthrough AI technology designed to improve plastics sorting accuracy, leverage deep learning capabilities and make it possible to sort objects not yet separated by traditional methods.

Combined with AutoSort technology, GainNext classifies material based on sensor data and provides object recognition using a red-green-blue (RGB) camera to separate materials with high purity levels without compromising throughput speed, according to the company.

GainNext can help create a pure recyclable PET fraction by removing difficult-to-detect plastic contaminants, such as multilayer packaging, to create a clean PET bottle stream, Tomra says. The PET cleaner application also targets the separation of white opaque PET from clear and light blue PET, which the firm says was typically difficult to solve with traditional technology.

Also still on offer is Tomra's Sharp Eye technology, which it says increases light efficiency while maintaining the same energy consumption to improve the separation of difficult-to-target fractions.

Another capability in its sorting lineup is Flying Beam sensing technology, which Tomra says offers better light efficiency to enable higher performance at lower costs. “Its compact design enables flexible and easy installation, while the enhanced light signal efficiency results in improved detection,” the company says.