Sortera is turning America’s scrap aluminum problem into cash

When it comes to recycling, there are few materials that can match aluminum. It can be reused an infinite number of times, and recycling is often less expensive than producing new aluminum because it requires much less energy. But just about One third Of the aluminum used in the United States is recycled.

The problem is sorting the mixed aluminum scrap, a challenge that has long hampered the recycling industry.

Michael Seamer, CEO typeHe believes his company has found the key, though. Sortera says it has developed a system that can separate aluminum grades with more than 95% accuracy – a feat that could open the door to vast untapped resources in the recycling industry.

Here’s how it works: The company uses an artificial intelligence model that identifies different grades of aluminum based on data from lasers, X-ray fluorescence, and high-speed cameras. The system has to classify each slice — about the size of a large potato chip — in a fraction of a second. “Ten milliseconds is a long time,” Simmer says. Once the vision system determines the grade, a series of nozzles blow precise jets of air to flip the slide off the belt and place it in the correct box.

This speed and accuracy is important because other recycling processes must melt the aluminum first before they can tell what type of alloy it is. If the bullion is not properly sorted, the mixed pile will be worth much less because customers cannot be confident that it will contain the properties they need.

“People wanted to go after (this unsorted aluminum), and no one could crack it,” Simmer says.

Sortera’s sorting precision has helped the company unleash something else many startups strive for: profitability. “The margin is very large above 90%, (while) 92% gives you a nice little margin, 95% gives you a big margin, (and) 98% is a really big margin.”

He says that has helped the company become cash flow positive since August, all based on the operation of a single plant in Indiana. To build a second factory in Tennessee, Sortera recently raised $20 million in equity and $25 million in debt in a round led by VXI Capital and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price, with participation from Overlay Capital and Yamaha Motor Ventures, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. Trinity Capital provides additional financing for equipment.

The new plant, being built near Nashville, will be operational in April or May. “It’s a replica of our factory in Indiana,” Simmer says. At the Indiana facility, “we are operating at full capacity, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, generating millions of pounds a month,” he says.

So where does all this aluminum come from? The aluminum scrap that Sorterra receives usually comes from scrapped cars. Each grade of aluminum breaks differently when torn, and these visual differences help the AI ​​classify the metal. “The chemical differences are evident in the cutting,” Simmer says. Different alloys produce characteristic tears and folds that give clues to order. “You gain these little insights so that within about 10 milliseconds you can say, ‘I’m pretty sure this is 356 (grade aluminum),” Simmer says.

As Sortera expands, much of the aluminum will likely return to automobile assembly lines. Auto manufacturers are using increasing amounts of metal to reduce vehicle weight and improve fuel efficiency. “Every auto manufacturer on the planet has visited Indiana at least twice,” Simmer says.

Sortera is currently working on ways to process other metals such as copper and titanium, but for the foreseeable future, the company will remain focused on aluminium. “We could immediately sort through the 18 billion tons of aluminum made annually in the United States, and every piece of it, every pound, would be sold at a profit in the United States.”