Identification of Plastic Material Composition
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsSean M. Ackley, Camillo Sassano
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Identification of a material composition. The material composition is configured with a color additive that is embedded or otherwise not visible. The color additive identifies the specific material composition. A discrete section or sub-section of the material is deformed such that the embedded color additive is made visible in the optical spectrum, after which the discrete section or sub-section may be sorted for recycling.
Claims2
A computer program product for use with composition identification, the computer program product comprising a computer-readable non-transitory storage medium having computer readable program code embodied thereon, which when executed causes a computer to implement the method comprising:
- sensing presence of a body within a defined area;
- applying a force to an area of the body, the body comprising at least two distinct materials, including a first having a first property and a second material in communication with the first material having a second property, the second property of the second material being non-visible in an optical spectrum in a first state of the body;
- transforming the body to a second state, different from the first state, including making visible a characteristic of the second material reflecting at least one optical wavelength;
- and
- identifying a composition of the first material based on the visible characteristic of the second material in the second state.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.