Material sorting using hyperspectral imaging for biocomposite recycling

The impending exhaustion of non-renewable natural resources emphasizes the importance of sustainable materials. One environmentally friendlier alternative to plastics are biocomposite materials, which are composed of recycled or virgin polymer and a natural fiber material. In order to be to be truly sustainable, the material has to be efficiently recycled, a task which demands a means for their sorting. This paper outlines a method for distinguishing different plastic and biocomposite samples from one another based on hyperspectral imaging. The developed regression model correctly classified 96 % of the samples in the dataset. In the case of biocomposite samples, the accompanying polymer was quite accurately recognized.