Eriez, a company specializing in separation technology, has unveiled its Copper Reduction Circuit for steel mills. The system is designed to help scrap processors produce premium low-copper shred for recycling purposes.

The company says that conventional shredded scrap can contain more than 0.33% copper. This is an issue for processors because copper contaminates steel shred, leading to a lower quality of recycled steel. The company says the circuit can convert shredded scrap into a product containing less than 0.20% copper.

“Steelmakers are under increasing pressure to maximize recycled-steel utilization without compromising product quality or furnace process performance," said Mike Shattuck, Eriez’s business development manager for recycling. "The Copper Reduction Circuit addresses both sides of that equation. It enables processors to produce a cleaner, more consistent shred product. The result is greater flexibility in the furnace charge and more value recovered from every tonne of scrap.”

The circuit is built around the Eriez’s Shred1 ballistic separator and a magnetic scrap drum. 

In the first stage, the ballistic separator uses magnetic attraction to separate processed shred into two material streams. The first stream, which usually represents around 75% of incoming material, consists of cleaner shred. 

The remaining fraction consists of a higher concentration of copper-bearing and composite material. This stream passes through a magnetic scrap drum which operates as a polishing stage. The drum removes up to 3% of nonferrous material and debris, which increases the yield for each melt. Ferrous material recovered at the polishing drum goes to the picking station, where copper-bearing materials are removed from the shred.

For further information, visit: eriez.com/Products/Metals-Recycling