Multispectral Acoustic Sensor for On-Site Plastic Sorting (ARD/277)

Multispectral Acoustic Sensor for On-Site Plastic Sorting (ARD/277)

Multispectral Acoustic Sensor for On-Site Plastic Sorting (ARD/277)
ARD/277
Seed
01 / 03 / 2022 - 30 / 11 / 2022
2,799.100

Dr Zhinan YU

Acoustic technologies have been used in exploring the underwater world complementarily to optical technologies which tend to be deficient underwater. Traditionally, acoustic technologies were mainly employed to “see” the objects. The emerging acoustic sensing technology enables exploring, identifying, or sorting materials based on the characteristic acoustic properties. In this project, we will develop a multispectral acoustic sensor for on-site plastic sorting. Currently, the quantity of plastic wastes entering the oceans through rivers annually is very large. Thus, a number of companies and organizations are devoted to collecting the plastic wastes from waters. Ideally, the plastic wastes collected from waters should be recycled. There are recycled plastic processing companies and specialized recycled plastic marketplaces. However, this business chain is hindered by manual pre-sorting, which is slow and inaccurate. To address the problem, we will develop an acoustic sensor for on-site plastic waste pre-sorting. The sorting would be based on the acoustic impedance difference for different types of plastics. The methodology of multispectral acoustic sensing would be applied to enhance the sensing sensitivity and selectivity. The sensor is expected to be installed on waste collection devices and help sort plastic wastes collected from waters on-site.