Winner of Russel Ackoff Award at the 25th Int. Conf. on Solid Waste Technology and Management

Solid waste stream characterization represents one of the key issue of a recycling process. The possibility to perform a fast and reliable identification of the different materials constituting a waste flow stream, and in particular the detection of pollutants, is becoming more and more important especially toward a zero-waste-economy. In this perspective a new class of HyperSpectral Imaging (HSI) based devices, and related detection-control logics, to perform an on-line characterisation of particulate solid waste complex systems, finalised to perform a products certification, is presented and critically evaluated. HSI is based on the utilization of an integrated hardware and software (HW&SW) platform embedding conventional imaging and spectroscopy to attain both spatial and spectral information from an object. Case studies, related to recent advances in the application of HSI to different industrial solid waste materials (cullets, ceramic glass, fluff, plastics, refuse derived fuel, bottom ashes, compost, etc.) and addressed to specific goals as contaminants detection, constituents analysis and waste stream quality evaluation and intermediate of final products certification are presented and critically evaluated, according to authors’ originally developed applications and experience.