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Innovation@Conestoga

Advanced Recycling Technologies Lab

Advanced Recycling Technologies Lab 

The Advanced Recycling Technologies Lab (ARTLab) is a modern e-waste recycling pilot plant that has been funded by through generous contributions totaling $2 million by both the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Research Fund, Construction began in 2019, with completion of the facility in early 2021. 

Although configured to support e-waste recycling, most of the ARTLab equipment can be repurposed and adapted for research into different recycling, material recovery, and product disassembly applications to support sustainable end-of-life solutions for companies that manufacture products.  

The recycling pilot plant with ARTLab provides an automation test bed for trying various sorting, picking and vision applications – from plastics to colour to metals differentiation. Our team can quickly develop a proof of concept for an automation challenge.  

A man controls a robotic arm with a controller

Gantry and Delta robots, conveyor systems

Supports research into material movement, the robotic dismantling of products, sorting solutions, and general manufacturing/warehouse operations research. 

A man controls a robotic arm with a controller

Camera technologies

Camera technologies support high-speed spectral data capture for material classifications and can be used in a variety of applications such as recycling, food grading and quality assurance.

Equipment

  • Short-wave infrared line scan camera
  • Mid-wave infrared scan camera
  • Terahertz wavelength sensor technologies
A controller used for controlling a robot

Collaborative robots

Collaborative robots support research into the use of collaborative robotics in industrial/warehouse settings and validation of use cases. 

Pilot plant

The pilot plant simulates a complete e-waste plant, providing end-to-end opportunity for industry to review end-of-life recycling of their products.

Equipment

  • Bin tipper end e-waste shredder
  • Magnetic sorting of ferrous material
  • Eddy current sorting of non-ferrous metallic material
  • Visible light colour sorter for material separation

Autonomous Intelligent Vehicles (AIVs) and robotics

Our AIVs support research into the autonomous movement of material within industrial/warehouse environments that can be used as a test-bed for use case validation. 

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