Polymers represent around 25% of total waste from electronic and electric equipment. Any successful recycling process must ensure that polymer-specific functionalities are preserved, to avoid downcycling. This requires a precise characterization of particle compounds moving at high speeds on conveyor belts in processing plants. We present a multi-sensor database including spectra acquired from imaging and point measurement sensors on 23 polymers including ABS, PS, PC, PE-types, PP, PVC, PET-types, PMMA, and PTFE. The techniques applied include hyperspectral imaging sensors (HSI) to map reflectance in the visible to near infrared (VNIR, (350–1000) nm ), short-wave (SWIR, (1000–2500) nm) and mid-wave infrared (MWIR, (2500–5000) nm) as well as point Raman, FTIR and portable spectral spectroradiometer (PSR) instruments.
This research activity was supported by EIT RawMaterials within the KAVA up-scaling project "RAMSES-4-CE" (19262). We thank The Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology for supporting and funding the project for the AisaFENIX sensor. We acknowledge the HighSpeedImaging project, Funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the Land of Saxony, for the SPECIM FX50 sensor.