Jonathan Schulberg explains how the Eriez Copper Reduction Circuit provides a competitive edge in the scrap metal market.
For more than 80 years, Eriez has been a global leader in separation technologies, designing and delivering process solutions for a range of industries.
The company’s equipment can be found across the world, playing important roles in everything from food, textile, and pharmaceutical production, to mining, recycling, and resource recovery.
Jonathan Schulberg, of Eriez, says the scrap metal industry is an ideal example of where the company’s process enhancements can have a big impact.
“The Eriez Copper Reduction Circuit (CRC) is revolutionising ferrous recovery in the scrap metal industry,” he says.
“It’s benchmarked both metal recovery rates as well as grade improvements.”
Jonathan says the CRC process consists of a PokerSort™ Magnetic Drum Separator positioned to extract long troublesome rods, rails, and other “pokers”, followed by a single or pair of P-Rex® Permanent Magnet Drums that recover up to 99 per cent of the ferrous material.
The CRC process also includes a Shred1® Ballistic Metal Separator to improve the ferrous product’s grade by reducing its copper content typically below 0.2 per cent.
“The process is designed to deliver operators with a competitive advantage in the market by improving quality and lifting recovery rates,” Jonathan says.
The PokerSort is designed to remove pokers such as leaf springs, tie rods, steering and axle components, and other troublesome long shapes immediately after the shred to minimise pegging, blockages and damage to materials handling and other downstream equipment.
Jonathan says that typically, as scrap exits the shredder, alignment guides on the incline conveyor tend to position pokers parallel with the flow. This increases the chance of pokers piercing and tearing the conveyor belt.
However, the Copper Reduction Circuit ensures that when the pokers reach the end of the transfer conveyor, they are magnetically pulled over and out of the process stream by the PokerSort into a discharge chute to be processed separately.
“The Eriez P-Rex is the strongest drum magnet available to the industry,” Jonathan says. “Its permanent rare earth magnetic circuit delivers 40 per cent greater strength than typical electromagnets.”
Jonathan says the P-Rex also provides full width edge-to-edge coverage and a strong pick-up capability.
“What this means is greater recovery rates of up to 99 per cent,” he says. “And every tonne processed generates proportionally more profit.”
The unique Traction Plate® option, combined with the P-Rex, is designed to aid cleaning by reducing the “clumping” effect on the cleats which entrained less fluff and dirt producing a cleaner product.
The addition of an Eriez Shred1 Ballistic Separator provides the operator the ability to automatically produce a premium low-copper ferrous product. Its high-speed processing sends clean, high-grade ferrous material on a different trajectory than mixed metals such as meatballs and wire harnesses that contain a proportion of copper.
Jonathan says these mixed metals degrade the ferrous product and often render the frag fraction to lower value uses.
“Premium low-copper ferrous is highly valued by most steel mills,” he says. “The more ferrous material recovered from the shred, the greater the profit. The lower copper content in the scrap steel reduces the need for added pig iron and DRI (direct reduced iron) in the steel making process.
“The Shred1 not only offers low copper frag, but data shows labour costs can be reduced, as only 25 per cent of the total material flow ends up reporting to the picking station.”
Jonathan says this results in better accessibility for picking copper bearing materials efficiently, which could translate to fewer pickers being required.
“The Eriez Copper Reduction Circuit process represents the greatest opportunity for scrap operators to increase their bottom line,” he says.
“It sets a new standard in scrap metal separation with PokerSort, P-Rex, and the Shred1 Ballistic Metal Separators working in unison. This system leads to better recovery and a higher-grade ferrous product while delivering it at a lower cost per tonne.”
For more information, visit: www.eriez.com.au
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