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US 8,144,831 B2Granted
Method and apparatus for sorting materials according to relative composition
AssigneeSpectramet, LLC
InventorsEdward J. Sommer, Jr., Charles E. Roos, David B. Spencer, R. Lynn Conley
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Abstract
Disclosed herein is a metal sorting device including an X-ray tube, a dual energy detector array, a microprocessor, and an air ejector array. The device senses the presence of samples in the x-ray sensing region and initiates identifying and sorting the samples. After identifying and classifying the category of a sample, at a specific time, the device activates an array of air ejectors located at specific positions in order to place the sample in the proper collection bin.
Claims4
A sorting device to distinguish materials of differing composition, comprising:
- an X-ray tube, wherein the X-ray tube is in a fixed position;
- a first multi-energy detector having a photon counting rate of about 1 million counts per second, positioned in a fixed position to receive x-rays from the X-ray tube;
- a detector array positioned to receive x-rays from the X-ray tube, wherein the detector array has a spatial resolution of 0.02 inches per pixel;
- a microprocessor operationally connected to the first multi-energy detector and the detector array;
- a computer memory operationally connected to the microprocessor;
- an ejector controller operationally connected to the microprocessor;
- and
- at least one ejector attached to the ejector controller.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.