FlexCycle

Initial situation: Gap in recycling

The sustainable recycling of raw materials from end-of-life products is a key concern of modern waste management in the EU. Despite advances in the automation of recycling processes, there is one major challenge: the processing and recycling of soft materials such as clothing and cables. These materials are difficult to handle with conventional robots due to their flexible structure. In addition, products accumulate in various model variants after their useful life and in different conditions as a result of wear, damage or the substitution of components. This requires innovative approaches to recognition and effective handling.

Our solution:

FlexCycle aims to develop automated systems for recycling and reusing soft materials that work both with and without human assistance.

This is achieved by:

• Developing flexible robotic tools such as end effectors for handling soft materials: These tools enable the processing of different materials with minimal changes to the hardware
• Modelling and AI-based identification of the properties of soft materials for their effective processing: This involves using a cross-substrate structural model in combination with advanced graph-attention neural networks to derive the desired robotic actions
• Integrating hardware and software to minimise the effort required for system setup: This contributes to increased efficiency and flexibility of the system.

FlexCycle addresses three use cases for soft materials: textiles, cables and fuel cell membranes. Adaptive components in hardware and software enable cross-domain transfer of recycling methods. In the membrane use case, Fraunhofer IWKS's expertise in recycling PEM fuel cells, and in particular in the efficient recovering of nobel metal catalyst materials, is utilised. Fraunhofer LBF contributes to the recycling of fluorine-containing membranes with regard to the recycling of PFAS-containing materials.