When it comes to nuclear cleanup, one of the key aspects is waste disposal. Hence the importance to sort waste retrieved from decommissioning activities, for instance, is crucial. Reducing the volume of end waste is essential. The potential to recategorise waste, to improve packing fraction and so on requires an efficient process to be put in place.

As part of waste retrieval practices, different types of waste need to go through different waste routes and meet required Conditions For Acceptance (CfA). Differents type of waste follow different criteria to reach a choosen disposal option.

When those waste are retrieved, a full range of assays and characterisations are typically executed. You also need to understand dimensions and shapes to improve packing fraction and be aware of sharp objects or oversized debris.

This sorting and segregating is usually done manually or semi-remotely.

Nowadays, robotics can come to the rescue to tackle the waste sort&seg in a safer and more efficient way. There are lots of manipulators on the market to choose from. That said, within the technology to integrate for a top-notch system, a great, responsive vision system is needed here.

Luckely, with the latest developments in terms of vision inspection technologies, there are now some very appealing alternatives based on 3D dynamic scanning. At inTechBrew, we have found a very interesting one that might be the missing piece of your sort&seg jigsaw.