AISORT PET Bottle Sorting Machine
Bottle-sorting platform for PET lines that need stronger purity, colour separation and contamination control before downstream flake or bottle-to-bottle processing.
Application Overview — Plastic Recycling
PET Bottle Sorting in Modern Recycling Facilities
PET bottle sorting is the foundation of the global rPET supply chain. Whole-bottle sorting separates PET from non-PET containers (HDPE, PP, PVC, PS) and sorts PET by color (clear, light blue, green, amber) before the bottles enter the grinding and washing stages. High-performance bottle sorting achieves >98% PET purity and >95% color accuracy at throughputs of 5-15 tonnes per hour.
Material Characteristics and Sorting Challenges
The primary challenges in PET bottle sorting are: removing PVC bottles (which look similar to PET but release HCl during rPET processing, causing yellowing and equipment corrosion); handling full-sleeve labeled bottles where the label obscures the bottle polymer from NIR sensors; sorting multi-layer bottles and barrier packaging; and achieving the throughput needed to supply a 15,000-25,000 t/year B2B plant.
Recommended Sorting Technology Stack
NIR (polymer identification: PET vs PVC/HDPE/PP/PS) + RGB (color: clear vs blue vs green vs amber) + metal detector (ferrous contaminants). Two-stage sorting is typical: first pass removes non-PET polymers, second pass sorts by color within the PET stream. For full-sleeve bottles, high-intensity NIR or hyperspectral sensors can penetrate thin labels.
Performance Benchmarks
| Metric | Target |
|---|---|
| PET Purity | >98% |
| Color Accuracy | >95% |
| Throughput | 5-15 t/h |
| Bottle Size | 50mL-5L |
These benchmarks represent achievable performance with modern sensor-based sorting equipment, assuming properly sized, well-maintained equipment operating on representative feedstock. Actual results depend on specific material composition, throughput, and operating conditions.
Suitable materials and output targets
Best suited to PET bottle streams where colour management, impurity control and downstream purity are commercially important.
PET clear bottle streams
For lines targeting cleaner clear PET output before washing or downstream reuse.
PET blue and mixed-colour flows
Useful where colour separation materially affects downstream acceptance.
Contaminated bottle streams
For lines where labels, caps and cross-material contamination reduce resale value.
Bottle-to-bottle preparation
Strong fit as a bottle purification stage inside broader premium PET recovery routes.
Recommended solution paths
These solution paths are the most relevant when PET bottle value depends on purity control rather than simple front-end volume.
Bottle-to-Bottle Solution
For plants targeting stricter PET purity and premium downstream reuse standards.
View solutionPlastic Waste Value Optimization
For plants balancing PET recovery against broader mixed-plastic line economics.
View solutionNeed PET line engineering support?
Talk with AISORT about bottle sorting logic, contamination control and the practical route toward higher-value PET output.
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