News Release

September 12, 2003

Satake Co-develops Paint Removal Technology for Car Bumper Recycling with Mazda Motor Corporation

Together with Mazda Motor Corporation, Satake has developed a new paint removal technology which uses optical sorters to help remove paint from crushed bumpers. This technology has considerably improved paint removal rates from reclaimed materials and has made possible “bumper-to-bumper recycling”, a process which requires materials of higher quality and strength.

The new technology developed by Satake uses the same optical sorters which remove discolored kernels and impurities from grain. These optical sorters are used to identify and remove crushed bumper pieces which still have some paint left after conventional mechanical paint removing process. Because the shape of crushed bumper pieces is flatter and has greater variance in size compared to grains, Satake optimized its optical sorters to suit this application. Satake also improved the processes that feed into the optical sorter by introducing size separation machinery to presort the size of the material. The new technology made it possible to improve the paint removal ratio from 99.0% to 99.9%.

Satake has continued to developing optical sorters which apply grain sorting technology to new applications, and will continue to develop technologies like recycling processes that reduce mankind's toll on the environment.

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