InnoTeer: Recycle material from roads sustainably

Short description of the project

The Fraunhofer Institutes IBP, IML, IOSB and UMSICHT are developing a multi-stage process to efficiently process tar-containing road debris in decentralized plants and thus recover the remaining mineral content in high quality. About 3.3 million tons of tar-containing road debris are produced in Germany every year. With just a single plant, large amounts of CO2 could already be saved, because existing disposal methods are expensive and not very sustainable.

Project goals

Development of innovative technologies and a process concept for decentralized, economical, energy- and resource-efficient processing of tar-containing road debris together with project partners. This means less CO2 emissions due to less transports and a treatment at lower temperatures, at the same time a better quality and larger amount of recycled material for the reuse in new roads. Thus, landfilling should be almost completely avoided in the end.

Contribution by Fraunhofer IOSB

In the field of visual inspection, Fraunhofer IOSB has been developing systems and equipment for sensor-based sorting for various tasks from the industry for over 20 years. In this project we are working on the detection and separation of the tar containing fraction in road debris. Our goal is to develop a new sorting solution for the tar containing fractions with the main focus on separation of fines and detection of black materials. In particular, spectral imaging is used for this purpose. A particular challenge lies in the differentiation of the tar-containing material from black mineral and bitumen. The method is then optimized for real-time use and integrated into a sensor-based sorting system. This allows the uncontaminated portions of the road debris to be reliably separated from the tar-containing portions. This allows for reliable separation of uncontaminated material for immediate reuse.