Tomra Finder Color targeted to metals sorting

Tomra Recycling, the sorting and recycling technology business unit of Norway-based Tomra ASA, is now offering the Finder Color sorting device, a high-throughput machine designed to address recycled metal and electronic scrap processing tasks.

“The next-generation color sorting system is engineered to deliver exceptional purity and recovery levels at high throughput across a broad spectrum of metals sorting tasks,” Tomra says.

The equipment provider says its Finder Color is particularly effective for recovering materials such as copper and brass from mixed heavy metals, cleaning stainless steel fractions (including those from end-of-life vehicles) and achieving high-level purification of printed circuit boards from mixed electronics scrap.

The new model can sort materials sizes from 0.2 to 4.7 inches at throughputs of up to 22.4 tons per hour, using the zorba grade as a benchmark measuring material.

The company says Finder Color combines established Tomra hardware and software with advanced artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to adapt to changing material streams and market demands.

It features a red-blue-green (RGB) camera and AI or machine learning object singulation technology designed to provide accurate, object-level sorting down to a few millimeters, even when objects are overlapping, adjacent or the same color as the belt, according to Tomra.

The Finder Color’s single-camera system sorts materials by color, size and shape, which Tomra says can provide operators “with full control and unmatched accuracy.”

Additionally, an optional electromagnetic sensor can enhance metal recovery from mixed streams in batch mode, supporting PCB classification in e-scrap or complementing the RGB sensor to add an extra purification layer against plastic contamination, according to Tomra, which says the batch sorting option also allows operators to quickly change which material they are sorting, such as switching from focusing on copper one day and brass the next.

Tomra says the Finder Color is compact and simple in design, meaning it easily can be integrated into existing sorting lines. The device also can be connected to the Tomra data platform for performance analysis purposes.

“Feedback from our metals customers highlighted the need for a highly flexible sorting machine to cover a wide range of sorting tasks,” says Tom Jansen of Tomra Recycling. “After 25 years of offering color sorters, we continue to see strong demand for versatile, highly accurate, reliable and cost-efficient solutions.

“Finder Color pushes the boundaries of what color sorting machines can achieve with applications like separating stainless steel from a mixed fraction of other grey metals, such as zinc and aluminum, and purifying e-scrap to help customers maximize their output and stay competitive.”

Tomra says the Finder Color is the "ideal last step sorting solution for extracting value from PCBs in e-scrap” that also can be used to sort stainless steel and wire from material recovered using Tomra’s predecessor Finder unit.

In North America, recyclers can test their materials through a Finder Color and other Tomra sorting devices at the Test Center operated by Wendt Corp. in Buffalo, New York.

“North American market feedback echoes this call for a flexible machine that delivers superior performance for a wide range of sorting tasks," says Giuseppe Granara of Tomra Recycling. "Color sorting with the new Finder Color offers more competitive and cost-effective ways to sort valuable metals and materials than other technologies currently available on the market."