Method and apparatus for the separation of materials using penetrating electromagnetic radiation

摘要

A technique for sorting different materials using x-ray radiation employs a conveyor for conveying a non-singulated stream of material items along a feed path and a transmission/detection arrangement. The transmission/detection arrangement transmits x-ray radiation to material items in the feed path, detects x-ray radiation received from different portions of each material item, and generates signals corresponding to radiation received from different portions of each material item. A circuit averages at least a portion of the signals to produce an averaged signal and analyses the averaged signal to determine at least one physical property of each material item based on analysis of the averaged signal. A sorting assembly sorts the material items based on the analysis of the averaged signal.