Stricter requirements in the plastic recycling industry
The production of plastic has grown enormously the last couple of years. Less than half of that plastic is recycled. The rest is deposited, burnt or ends up in nature. According to the law it will be obligatory in the future to produce plastic products with at least 50-55% of recycled plastic. Besides the fact that the percentage of recycled plastic in plastic end products is increasing, the requirements for the plastic is increasing. Think for example of the type of plastic and the origin of the plastic.
Color and clarity is becoming essential
The current developments show that it is getting more important for the end customer to receive products with good recycled plastic. Color and clarity is for them a sign of good quality. Furthermore the products should offcourse have the correct color. This is however increasingly difficult to realize because the end product needs to consist of more different types of recycled plastic.
Monitoring the color of recycled plastic
For the desired quality it is important that plastic pellets should be monitored for color and clarity accurately and reliably. These pellets, often in the shape of pearles are created after sorting, washing and extruding (compounding) of recycled plastic recyclate. The pellets are then often stored in big silo's. Samples are then extracted from the silo's.
Performing a reliable and accurate colour control of samples with recycled pellets is possible with theLAB colour measurement system from Sensor Instruments.
The functioning of the color measurement system from Sensor Instruments
First the sample with pellets is poured into a funnel on the side of the measuring instrument. The integrated sensor measures the color of the sample from behind a glass plate. The measured colour is shown numerically with L*a*b* color values. The standard deviations dL*da*db* describe the color differences with pre-calibrated RAL cards. The measured values are then all stored on the PC which runs on the free pre-installed software. Finally, the measured color values, including indormatie about the type of recyclate and the date and time of the measured sample are shown on a label, printed out and stuck on the sample containers.
In the knowledge article; Measuring recycled plastic: Accurately automated control due to LAB color measurement system more knowledge is shared about the LAB color measurement system.
