Machine Makes Short Work of Battery Recycling

For everyone who recycles their batteries, good for you! Your efforts won't be wasted, at least not in Sweden and the U.K., where a machine with artificial intelligence is being developed to sort all of those batteries so they can be sold for their still-usable components. University of Gothenburg, in Sweden, has a camera and a computerized brain that runs on a neural network. That kind of system works more like a human brain in that it can learn to "see" patterns and respond to them. It's an ability that's important for sorting batteries, which come in a range of different sizes and shapes and contain materials, such as lead, cadmium and steel, that need to be distinguished from one another because they're valuable for resale. At the recycling plant, batteries are fed to the machine on a conveyor belt.