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2025 March 11 - The University of Liège (ULiège) announces the creation of the spin-off company MATVISION, the result of more than ten years of R&D and innovation at the GeMMe laboratory of ULiège, a development carried out in collaboration with industrial partners COMET Group (Mons) and Cilyx (Liège). MATVISION specialises in the development of robotic sorting solutions for industrial waste such as shredded metals, promoting their recycling (circular economy) in the context of the energy and digital transition.

Based on the technology developed as part of the PICKIT project, MATVISION combines an advanced sensor system (X-ray, infrared, laser and 3D), artificial intelligence and robotics to offer a fast (in a single pass) and accurate sorting solution for different categories of metals. This solution optimises the economic value of the materials thus sorted.

The MATVISION market is primarily made up of industrial recyclers in Belgium, Europe and worldwide. The dismantling of cars and household appliances is the primary source of metal waste for which MATVISION provides an efficient sorting solution, particularly for strategic metals such as copper, aluminium and nickel. There are currently more than 350 car recyclers in Europe, and given the industrial developments based on recycling, the potential market for MATVISION is even larger.

MATVISION is also a service company that studies the feasibility of the most suitable sorting solutions on a case-by-case basis using its unique multi-sensor and multi-output technology. Together with its subcontractors, it then supervises the in situ assembly of the robotic sorting lines. Feasibility studies are carried out on the prototype line installed at ULiège.

MATVISION srl has already received funding of 160,000 euros from its founders and imec.istart (50,000 euros: this is the first investment in its Liège hub for imec.istart). The company also benefits from a convertible loan of 50,000 euros from imec.istart. MATVISION is preparing to launch a fundraising campaign to secure more than 1 million euros of funding by September in order to give itself the means to realise its ambitions.

Industrial demonstrator

A partner from the outset of the GeMMe laboratory at ULiège, the COMET Group carried out the first industrial validation of this robotic sorting solution by investing, in 2021, 10 million euros (building and equipment) in an industrial demonstrator, a chain of 16 sorting robots with a sorting capacity of 20, 000 tonnes of metal waste per year (i.e. one billion parts at a rate of 16 parts sorted per second). Called MULTIPICK, this industrial investment was made with the support of Wallonia (as part of the Mecatech cluster's Reverse Metallurgy programme) and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) funding.

MATVISION technology

The technology is based on the combination of the development of sensors for recognising materials and high-speed robotic sorting, all driven by its own artificial intelligence.

Combination of different sensors:

• X-ray measurements that allow real-time evaluation of material density;
• A 3D scanner to measure the shape and volume parameters of crushed objects;
• A hyperspectral camera to measure the reflectance of materials in the visible and infrared spectrum;
• A LIBS (laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy) laser to differentiate between different metal alloys.

The processing of this data is carried out by machine learning, a branch of Artificial Intelligence. After learning the different desired categories (aluminium, zinc, copper, brass, lead, stainless steel, etc.), each new fragment is assigned to a category. The conveyor belt rotates at more than 1 metre per second. MATVISION technology is capable of processing up to 20 types of materials in a single pass. This feature makes MATVISION technology unique in the world because the systems currently used to process metals are only capable of separating two families simultaneously. The 3D acquisition of the parts makes it possible to choose the optimal gripping points for the robots with clamps.