At GAIKER we base on the treatment of material flows from all types of post-consumer and pre-consumer waste: light packaging, end-of-life vehicles (ELV), waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), construction and demolition waste (CDW), composites, textiles, batteries, composite and emerging waste. The waste is characterised in accordance with the applicable standards for each stream and is conditioned so that it is input into the separation equipment in an optimised form. Physical or chemical differences in the components of complex mixtures are exploited for their separation. Automatic identification and separation technology is developed incorporating sensors.
Recycling technologies are researched, applied, evaluated and adapted to separate materials from these waste streams once they have been characterised and conditioned. The final objective is to design and evaluate specific recycling processes to obtain recovered material fractions of the highest quality that can be returned to the economic cycles in high added value applications in line with the circular economy.
This equipment enables us to identify and classify mixed materials automatically by capturing and analysing hyperspectral images and create predictive models based on chemometrictools. Moving samples can also be analysed.
It consists of a LIBS analyser integrated into a conveyor belt for in-line material scanning and analysis. The analyser consists of spectrometers, a measuring head and a 1,064 nm laser source. The system is rounded off with specific software for the development and application of continuous identification and classification methods.
This equipment has an NIR sensor mounted on an 80 cm wide belt with a speed of up to 3 m/s. The equipment is able to detect typical patterns in some materials based on the vibration of the molecules after excitation with light and use this difference to separate them using blowers.
An input stream can be divided into two output fractions, one with a lower density than the medium or "floated", and the other with a higher density or "sunk". The density is adjusted according to the separation requirements, for which saline solutions can be used.
The aim is to develop a new, efficient, sustainable, technologically advanced circular value chain, geared towards recovering critical, strategic raw materials (CRMs) in a targeted manner. These CRMs can be found in post-consumer waste and the streams resulting from processing it, such as photovoltaic and hybrid panels, printed circuit boards (PCBs), end-of-life vehicle (ELV) fluff, steel mill tailings and other complex industrial solid waste materials. SERVET will focus on recovering key, strategic raw materials such as copper (Cu), silicon (Si), tantalum (Ta) and niobium (Nb), materials that are essential for critical sectors such as the energy transition, digitalisation, and the automotive and electronics industries.
Subsidised by the CDTI and supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities
The objective is to develop artificial intelligence-based technologies to identify, sort and recover valuable metals in the recycling process of the new generation of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs).
Subsidised by the Basque Government.
Design, development and evaluation of a prototype for automatically identifying and sorting plastic waste, with brominated flame retardants based on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) applied to plastics from WEEE, CDW and aviation, developing recycled plastic formulations and demonstrating their validity in high value applications.
 |
This project received funding from the European Commission's Horizon 2020 research and development programme under contract number 820477 |
Design, development and evaluation of a prototype for automatically identifying and sorting plastic waste, with brominated flame retardants based on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) applied to plastics from WEEE, CDW and aviation, developing recycled plastic formulations and demonstrating their validity in high value applications.
 |
This project received funding from the European Commission's Horizon 2020 research and development programme under contract number 869336. |
We research and develop new lab-based real-time identification and quality control systems through the incorporation of artificial intelligence; decision-making support systems; research on traceability using Blockchain technology. Lab-based development and validation of the interconnection and performance of components in a cyber-physical system.
We seek to create new technological knowledge that lays the foundations for the smart digital transformation of waste sorting plants, aimed at increasing the efficiency and productivity of the processes, and driving future R&D projects to tackle the demanding challenges that lie ahead in the coming decades.
Development of HW (manipulation robots, collaborative robots, AGVs, cameras), SW (individual actions, plant integration, robot and human communication), virtual models of devices and complete plant, application to WEEE management, and technological, environmental (LCA) and social (SLCA) assessment with ethical aspects.
|
This project received funding from the European Commission's Horizon 2020 research and development programme under contract number GA 820742 |
The project is based on designing a pre-treatment process, sorting the plastic waste in the WEEE stream, and separating high impact polystyrene (HIPS) and acrylonitrile–butadienestyrene (ABS) from WEEE for further purification and recovery of additives.
|
This project received funding from the European Commission's Horizon 2020 research and development programme under contract number 821087 |
Recycling and Circular Economy Market Manager