Boer Group, a global textile recycling company, collaborates with trinamiX GmbH, a top supplier of mobile spectroscopic solutions in order to improve its textile sorting capabilities. The efficiency of recognising and sorting textile material streams is significantly improved by Boer Group with the implementation of trinamiX Mobile NIR Spectroscopy Solution at first sorting facilities in the Netherlands.
Boer Group separates used textiles into 350 various types and quality for reuse or recycling, processing more than 400,000 kilogrammes of textiles per day. To effectively sort textile waste into clean waste streams and recycle it into new textile fibres and products, it is imperative that textiles and textile blends be accurately identified in this context.
Boer Group has implemented trinamiX Mobile NIR Spectroscopy Solution to help staff members quickly and easily identify the most popular textiles and textile blends on the spot, significantly improving its manual sorting process. The novel plug-and-play technology swiftly determines the sorts of textiles based on a well-established methodology for material identification. The intuitive response is quickly shown on a smartphone, tablet, or computer display following a brief touch with the sample.
The solution works with a wide variety of common textile grades, including acrylic, cotton, nylon 6/6.6, polyester, polypropylene (PP), silk, sisal, viscose, and wool, which are used in apparel, furniture, and household items. Multiple-material textiles can also be distinguished. Blends made from acrylic, cotton, nylon, polyester, silk, or wool are examples of these.
Compact design and simple handling, which enable flexible integration into current manual sorting processes and infrastructure, are a fundamental advantage for Boer Group. TrinamiX combines the benefits of several configurations into a single flexible solution, ranging from on-the-spot checks using a handheld device that fits into a user’s pocket to semi-automated setups where clients may incorporate the solution into a sorting table for automatically triggered scans.
“We are constantly working on sustainable ways to reduce residual textile waste to a minimum and find better solutions to keep textiles in the cycle,” says Rainer Binger, COO of Boer Group.
“Boer Group is a great example of how an innovative company combines experience with the latest technology to unlock further potential on the transition towards a full circular textile industry,” says Christian Nitschke, Director IR Sensing and Spectroscopy Solutions Business at trinamiX.
