Color is determined by light on the bottle and reading it with a color sensor. IHI uses the penetration method, in which light is shone through the bottom of the bottle and a camera is set up on the other side.

The sensor breaks each color into the three primary colors of light: red, green and blue. The color of the bottle is determined by comparing this mixture of primary colors with colors stored in the sensor's memory.

2. Composition

This system is composed by the next four parts.

(1) Size sorter        : Glass bottle has a lot of sizes and shapes. To treat bottles
                         easily, bottles are divided on its diameter into two groups 
                         by the rotary size sorter.
(2) Bottle arranger    : Divided each bottles are arranged to identify it certainly.
(3) Color identifier   : The color of the bottle is determined by reading penetrated 
                         light with a color sensor.
(4) Separating zone    : Identified bottles are ejected exactly and efficiently on
                         the each fixed positions by using conveyer of keyboard type.

GLASS BOTTLE COLOR SORTING SYSTEM

3. Features

(1) High speed process : It can process 6 tons bottles per hour.
(2) High purity and high rate of recovery
(3) High speed color identification : It can process five bottles per second.
(4) Compact arrangement

4. Performance

(1) Capacity         : 6 tons per hour (Max)
(2) Bottle size      : Over 30mm diameter
(3) Sortable color   : Flint,Amber,Green,Blue,Black

5. Flow Sheet

The following flow sheet is a typical case of application of the glass bottle sorting system.