Dillon McDowell, one of our X-ray fluorescence (XRF) Applications Scientists, presented a paper at the 15th Asia Pacific Conference for Nondestructive Testing (APCNDT 2017) in Singapore.
Dillon’s paper, “Screening of Ceramic and Leaded Contaminants in Glass Recycling Streams via Handheld X-ray Fluorescence (HHXRF) Analyzers” was coauthored with Olympus Applications Manager, Alex Thurston.
In the paper, Dillon discusses the techniques, drawbacks, and benefits of recycling glass and ceramic glass. One challenge that material recovery facilities (MRFs) face is that the magnetic and optical sorting systems they normally use to separate glass cullet from recycled glass are not effective at screening glass ceramic and leaded constituents from cullet streams. These contaminants lower the value of glass cullet to glass manufacturers. Handheld X-ray fluorescence analyzers are widely used since they can provide material chemistry results quickly. The results of this study demonstrate that HHXRF can detect even small quantities of ceramic elements in glass and glass cullet and that lead and color agents (iron (Fe) and copper (Cu)) can be reliably detected within seconds. Dillon also demonstrates that in-line XRF systems can be adapted to provide fast, reliable results that can keep up with the speed that cullet is typically measured.
