Eriez helps recyclers and mills meet low-copper shred requirements

The steel bar, plate and sheet products that are shipped from scrap-fed electric arc furnace (EAF) mills have carefully measured levels of chemistry, with the amount of copper allowed into the product always required to stay below a specific level.

Those requirements on the shipping end of EAF mills also play a role in inbound scrap specifications at those same mills, Eriez Market Manager-Recycling Mike Shattuck says. Measuring the chemistry of ferrous scrap is nothing new, but the ongoing importance of using low-copper scrap is playing a growing role in the profitability of shredder operators.

Low-copper shredded scrap is valuable to mills for several reasons. Primarily, if inbound ferrous shred can meet a tight low-copper specification, it allows mills to save on the costs of buying blending ingredients or alternative feedstocks, such as pig iron, hot briquetted iron or prime grades.

“Low-copper ferrous shred can help shredded scrap remain a key feedstock at bar mills and open the door wider for it at plate and sheet mills.”

Mill companies and their key scrap suppliers have been engaged with Eriez for several years to operate shredding plants and downstream systems to create a low-copper (below 0.2 percent, by some measures) ferrous shred.

The investments can pay off in the case of a market premium for low-copper shred; but, perhaps more importantly, they can help shredded scrap remain a key feedstock at bar mills and open the door wider for it at plate and sheet mills.

“Operators who make the best, most reliable low-copper product are going to be the preferred providers to mills, with the potential to also receive a premium for the product,” Shattuck says.

Eriez has taken part in several installations to help shredding plant and downstream operators create lower-copper-content shred and continues to do so. The Eriez customers can produce their own low-copper shred, and they can buy lower-grade shred and upgrade it themselves to fetch market premiums.

Shattuck says the Eriez Shred1 Ballistic Separator and powerful rare earth P-Rex drum magnets are critical components in its system designed to provide mills with low-copper shred. “The P-Rex has high strength to capture meatballs and knuckles, thus ensuring all ferrous products report to one location and are presented to the Shred-1 for separation.”

Shredding plant operators can help themselves by pursuing low-copper specifications, Shattuck says, giving them considerable incentive to investigate the automated Eriez methodology.

“If shredder plants don’t do it, mills will do it to their benefit,” he says. “The return on investment can be a price premium for better quality scrap; an increase in copper pickings, which yields a nonferrous scrap return throughout the course of the year; and a reduction in labor.”

Descriptions of the Eriez product line for metal recyclers can be found at www.eriez.com/Recycling.