Equipment report

Eriez offers new line of monitoring devices

Separation technology and equipment provider Eriez, Erie, Pennsylvania, has introduced the Eriez SMART (System Monitoring and Reporting Technology) line of products for the recycling industry. The company says the products were developed to monitor and report on frequently fluctuating measurements throughout typical recycling processes, giving operators greater control over maximizing metals recovery and separation efficiency.

“Our SMART products embrace technology to offer new functionality, superior reliability, better product utilization and capabilities that push beyond traditional product boundaries,” says Mike Shattuck, market manager, metals recycling. “The SMART products line for recycling currently includes Eriez’s previously introduced Metal Loss Monitor (MLM) as well as the new Moisture Monitor, Splitter Monitor and Belt Scale option. A number of additional products are currently in development and will be added to the line in the future,” he says.

Introduced in 2014, the Eriez MLM continuously scans the residue stream for metal that has escaped the process and is headed for landfill disposal, the company explains. It is engineered for installation on flat or trough conveyor belts for the tailing or fluff stream and is available in nearly any belt width and standard conveyor configurations, the company adds.

The MLM has a counter that can be reset hourly, daily or with each disposal truck load. If information provided by the MLM indicates a disposal load contains high levels of metals, yard managers can prevent it from being landfilled.

The company says the MLM’s Data Acquisition and Reporting package offers endless possibilities for process improvements using trend analysis and statistical process control. Data are instantly available to anyone, anytime via Eriez’s Remote Reporting, through which text alerts are sent when metal losses rise above a predetermined level, Eriez says. The Eriez Moisture Monitor is a noncontact electronic scanning device that measures the water content of material passing through its inspection field. When installed on a conveyor, it reports the moisture content of the material on the belt as a percentage that can be read locally or remotely via the Eriez MLM Web portal, the company says. This capability is beneficial to the recycling industry because operators can better optimize the amount of water injected into the mill to prevent fires and control airborne dust generation. With the Moisture Monitor in place, Eriez says, the mill operator can assure sufficient water injection to accomplish these safety goals. Excessive water content interferes with separation, increases metal losses and increases costs because of the added water weight of reject material sent to the landfill.

The Eriez Splitter Monitor is an optical system designed to measure debris buildup on the leading edge of splitter blades used in different types of separation equipment in the recycling industry. It provides an analog measurement of the amount of this buildup and can be programmed through the Eriez MLM Web portal to send warning alerts via email or cellphone text messages to prompt personnel to clean the splitter blade.

Eriez says its Splitter Monitors allow recycling line operators to perform this essential function in fewer labor hours by automatically monitoring and alerting personnel.

The Eriez MLM Belt Scale continuously monitors the gross weight of recycling reject material passing through the Eriez MLM. It provides additional data that, when combined with Eriez’s proprietary calculations, monitor the separation efficiency of recycling plants.

A video highlighting the SMART product line is available at http://ow.ly/Mlv7P.

TITECH rebrands as TOMRA Sorting Recycling

Formerly known as TITECH, TOMRA Sorting Recycling, a manufacturer of sensor-based sorting machinery used in the recycling industry, began a rebranding effort in 2012 to align with parent company, Norway-based TOMRA Systems ASA.

The company recently announced the final step in that rebranding process, which is removing the TITECH name from its product portfolio while retaining the product family names. The new name change was effective May 2015, with the rebranding expected to be completed by the end of this year, according to the company.

Wendt Corp., based in Buffalo, New York, and Van Dyk Recycling Solutions, Stamford, Connecticut, represent TOMRA Sorting Recycling in North America.

More information is available at www.tomra.com/en/ solutions-and-products/sorting-solutions/recycling.

Penn Waste opens new recycling plant

Penn Waste Inc., headquartered in York, Pennsylvania, has opened a new 96,000-square-foot material recovery facility (MRF) in Manchester, Pennsylvania.

Bulk Handling Systems (BHS), Eugene, Oregon, designed, manufactured and installed the plant’s single-stream processing system. The new building and equipment upgrades Penn Waste’s sorting and processing capability to 35 tons of recyclables per hour from the 10 tons per hour the old system handled.

The system features optical sorting technology by BHS subsidiary National Recovery Technologies (NRT), Nashville, Tennessee.

The new facility more than triples Penn Waste’s processing capabilities, making it one of the largest in the region and the nation, according to BHS.