Scrap cleaning equipment improves the melting process, obtaining benefits such as reducing the consumption of energy, raw materials, refractories and electrodes.

At the same time, this type of equipment will allow better process automation and greater respect for the environment.

The main objective of the installation of this machinery is to reduce energy consumption in the electric arc furnace. The installation of a scrap preparation system allows the applied energy to be concentrated solely on the fusion of iron-based materials. This avoids the energy expenditure that currently occurs in heating loose hearth and refractories, plastic and rubber elements, cellulose and non-ferrous materials that accompany scrap metal.

THE CLEANING PROCESS

The basic process to separate and remove the sterile and nonferric metals that come mixed up with the scrap, before introducing it into the electric arc furnace can be described as follows:

• By means of the scrap grapple crane the scrap (Category 1 & 2 and Fragmented scrap) is unloaded into the vibrating feeding table. As the product advances, the vibrations of the table cause the scrap to move forward and the separation of the tailings begins.
• The magnetic rotary drum is installed after the vibrating feeder and it attracts the ferric elements that are present on the scrap, allowing the sterile and nonferric elements to fall down through an opening located between the table and the magnetic drum.
• The scrap that has been processed and cleaned by means of the magnetic drum flows onto the scrap yard. Later on, the clean scrap that has been stored in the scrap yard will be loaded into the buckets and transported to the electric arc furnace.
• The remaining tailings and nonferric metals are collected either through vibrating conveyors or through belt conveyors that are installed bellow the vibrating table and the magnetic drum and are taken away to different locations such as skips, dumps, etc.
• Depending on particular requirements of separation and productivity, additional equipment, such as a second magnetic drum, a sieve in the vibrating feeder for small size material, a magnetic overband to extract small size ferrous parts can be installed, among others.

Technology

This kind of installation has been designed to process from 80 to 150 tons of scrap per hour, depending on the scrap qualities.

The operation of this plant is fully automatic, with control through a PLC and a fault display. This display can show a synoptic chart with the current status of the plant.

The plant includes all the protection systems and safeties necessary for correct operation.

The advantages that our technology provides are the following:

• Energy saving
• Electrode saving
• Productivity increasee
• NOx reduction
• CO reduction