Steinert installs inline system to extract "meatballs"

May 10, 2011

Steinert, Cologne, Germany, has installed its first XSS®-F, an inline system designed to extract copper (such as the so-called “meatballs”) from shredded ferrous scrap. Installed inline at a German recycling yard, the system can process high volumes of steel scrap directly out of the shredder.

The new sorting system features Olympus Innov-X's X-stream technology, which is a high-speed X-ray fluorescence (XRF) sensor that can carry out elemental analysis in millisecond time scales. Capable of a throughput of more than 100 tons per hour, the system features a 2-m belt width and an average end product containing less than 0.20 percent Cu.

The standard system model comprises a conveyor-mounted spectrometer module that typically contains multiple tubes and detectors to find and analyze every piece of scrap material. In a few milliseconds, customer-defined sorting parameters determine whether or not to divert that piece out of the main stream. Diverted material is ejected using Steinert’s high-powered compressed-air valves.