PICKIT
Pickit Project
Project and PICK IT technology
Metallurgy is a skill that Wallonia can not loose. Thus, in the context of the Marshall Plan, € 41.5 millions were invested in the « Reverse Metallurgy » project which brings together different industrial and academic Walloon partners in order to allow the development of techniques that better recycle metals.
As part of this project Reverse Metallurgy, GeMMe group from the University of Liège, in collaboration with Comet Treatment and Citius Engineering, developped an acquisition bench intended in particular for characterization of metallic automotive shredder residues for recycling purposes.
This bench is the integration of a conveyor belt and various sensors:
- XRT (X-Ray Transmission) for measuring the density of the material.
- 3D to measure the shape parameters of the crushed objects.
- Hyperspectral to measure its reflectance spectrum.
These measures allow a real-time high-speed classification of the different metallic objects passing under the sensors. The major difficulties are the synchronization of the different sensors and the calibration and real-time analysis of those measurements.
This project lead to its industrialization within the COMET Group : MULTIPICK.
And a spin-off was born
Spin-off company MATVISION is based on the technology developed for the PICKIT Project. MATVISION combines an advanced system of sensors (X-ray, infrared, laser and 3D), artificial intelligence and robotics to offer a solution for fast (single-pass), accurate sorting of different metal categories. This solution optimizes the economic value of the materials sorted in this way.
Partnership
Consortium: Comet Traitements S.A., Citius Engineering, ULiège GeMMe
Funding
Walloon Region
Reverse Metallurgy Portfolio
Timeline
2015 - 2017 (36 months)
Communication
updated on 6/4/25
