Grantee Research Project Results

Enhanced Efficiency of UBC Recycling Powered by Artificial Intelligence

EPA Contract Number: 68HERC25C0007
Title: Enhanced Efficiency of UBC Recycling Powered by Artificial Intelligence
Investigators: Molstad, Emily
Small Business: Valis Insights, Inc.
EPA Contact: Richards, April
Phase: II
Project Period: October 18, 2024 through October 17, 2026
Project Amount: $400,000
RFA: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) - Phase II (2025) Recipients Lists
Research Category: SBIR – Sustainable Materials Management

Description:

The specific need for VALI-Sort technology stems from the inefficiencies and limitations in the current recycling industry. Traditional methods rely heavily on manual evaluation of process efficiency and do not correlate to material or process changes. These evaluations are time-consuming, prone to errors, and lack real-time process insights. The industry urgently needs an automated, data-driven solution for process understanding and optimization. VALI-Sort meets this need by integrating with process equipment, such as sensor-based sorters, and business software, like ERPs, to provide process monitoring and facility insights. VALI-Sort aggregates data from various sensors, optimizing the sorting process and providing valuable supplier and process insights, which are crucial for recyclers to make informed decisions. The innovation in VALI-Sort lies in its integration with existing hardware and software systems to create more accurate insights with less effort using advanced data analytics. Unlike traditional methods and competing solutions, VALI[1]Sort delivers process insights based on KPIs defined by recyclers, offering a significant leap forward in process monitoring and optimization technology. The feasibility of VALI-Sort was demonstrated in Phase I through the successful integration with process equipment and business software. The Phase I results confirmed the ability of VALI-Sort to automatically ingest data from a variety of sources and highlight KPIs for the test facility. In Phase II, efforts will be focused on refining these integrations, validating performance, and securing initial sales. This phase involves further integration of process and business data and validating the performance of the recommendations generated. The commercial applications for VALI-Sort are vast, with end users including scrap processors, recycling facilities, and metal recovery plants. VALI-Sort will be entering the $6 billion waste management software market. Compared to existing solutions, VALI-Sort excels in providing insights and optimizing sorting processes. Competitors like ERPs and standalone vision systems lack the comprehensive integration and automated capabilities of VALI-Sort. VALI-Sort can provide more accurate operating metrics and insights with less effort through aggregating data from various sources. This provides facilities with an enhanced understanding of their operating margins and offers opportunities for them to react quickly to changes in the market or within their process. This increased understanding will enable data-driven decisions to be made quickly, allowing facilities using VALI-Sort to adapt to changing conditions faster than those not using the technology, thereby minimizing losses and maximizing gains. With VALI-Sort we expect more recyclers to continue operations thus providing substantial environmental impact.

SBIR Phase I:

Enhanced Efficiency of UBC Recycling Powered by Artificial Intelligence  | Final Report