"With this system, companies improve their decision-making related to the reuse and recycling of materials to increase their quality control"
Launch of Trazia, an advanced multi-signal sensor system that uses integrated AI to foster the recovery of materials
TECNALIA has launched Trazia, which multiplies a thousand times the amount of information currently received by the different actors in the value chain regarding the materials analysed, compared to traditional laboratory analysis techniques. The centre is already providing this service to more than a dozen companies, such as Viuda de Sainz or Demoliciones Lezama.
It is a system that is capable of tracing and predicting multiple characteristics of material resources, such as their morphology, colour, size or chemical composition in order to increase the traceability of information, through multi-modal spectral and visual sensors and deep learning algorithms. Therefore, companies improve decision-making regarding the reuse and recycling of materials and increase the quality control of materials. Furthermore, this process increases business productivity by 20%.
Increased efficiency at the end of production cycles
According to Iñigo Vegas, Director of Next Construction at TECNALIA, "this system, called Trazia, opens a new window in the digital transformation, increasing profitability, productivity and decarbonisation for different production actors in circular value chains.
The system makes it possible to predict which end-market application a waste manager can target, based on the expected end-product characteristics. In this way, efficiency is increased at the end of the production cycles. Furthermore, this mass generation of data will increase trust in the relationships between actors of the circular chains, fostering the use of secondary raw materials".
Fostering the digital transformation
This system fosters the digital transformation in the mining-extractive sector, eco-industry and the construction sector, optimising processes, the quality of raw materials and increasing the traceability and objective information in relation to diverse circular value chains. Therefore, it is being developed for integration in different industrial processes, enabling the following types of materials to be analysed:
- Resources from construction and demolition.
- Recycling of food packaging, furniture, insulation or building systems.
- Mineral resources for energy products, such as wind turbine blades.
- Identification of minerals and metals in the extractive sector.
More specifically, for manufacturers of cement-based construction products in the Basque Country, the availability of highly reliable recovered mineral fractions obtained thanks to this system could lead to annual savings of between €2.8 million and €26 million. In the case of bio-based food packaging, circularity rates can be increased by more than 70%.
