Training Session 2 – Metal Separation Strategy

This session explains where the non-ferrous metals in shredder residue sit, what they are worth, and what a traditional dry system realistically recovers from them.

• Your shredder mix predicts your non-ferrous yield
  Calculate the expected ferrous and non-ferrous yield per input stream. In the example, 9,350 tons of input gives 71 percent ferrous and 6.6 percent non-ferrous, a benchmark to test your recovery plant against.
• Shredder residue is a complex mixture with a clear pattern
  Non-ferrous metals make up 15 to 35 percent of the weight, plastics 30 to 40 percent, rocks, glass and sand 20 to 30 percent. Metals are more than twice as dense as the rest: 22 percent of the weight, barely 11 percent of the volume.
• Non-ferrous is 30 to 40 percent of revenue
  Sold as Zorba, Zurik and shred ICW, it comes to $111 per input ton. Sold as furnace-ready, differentiated products, that rises to $180.
• Denser shredding improves liberation
  Aim for about 100 lbs per cubic foot. You get less non-ferrous contamination in the steel and a more uniform residue for the separation steps downstream.
• Debulking reduces the volume to be processed
  With an air-before-magnets layout (z-box), the light fraction is removed up front. That cuts the volume going into the non-ferrous plant by up to two thirds.
• Two families of separation technology
  Machines that separate on material properties (magnets, eddy current, density) and machines that use detection and ejection (induction, color, XRF, LIBS). No single technology delivers a furnace-ready product on its own.
• A dry system recovers 78 percent of the metal and 60 percent of the value
  Zorba and Zurik still need further processing. The smaller fractions hold the most valuable metals, copper and brass, and that is where the equipment performs worst.