Steinert’s new Selective Sensor allows Milliron Recycling to purify its nonferrous metal.

Already happy with its Steinert Eddy Current Separators (NES) and In­duction Sorting Systems (ISS), Milliron Recycling, Mansfield, Ohio, was ready to move to the next level when Dennis Ciccotelli of SteinertUS commissioned the company’s first U.S. Selective Sensor feature in their ISS units.

According to Ciccotelli, the Selective Sensor option is new to the North American market in 2005. Although it is new technology, the good news for existing customers is that it can be easily retro­fitted to work with existing Steinert ISS units.

“The Selective Sensor is identical in size and shape to the existing ISS sensor that is already popular,” he notes. “The difference is in the internal electronic com­ponents and programming.”

What the Selective Sen­sor does differently from the ISS sensor is seek out a specific type of metal for detection and separation, allowing recyclers to maxi­mize the purity (and thus, shipping value) of a type of metal that is enjoying a boom market.

“The sensor and the soft­ware, instead of making one decision, makes multiple analyses of the electronic signature of the particles,” Ciccotelli notes.

Milliron Recy­cling has continued to use the ISS all-metal setting every day to harvest all of the metal from its shredder stream. But then once a week, the company has been running its mixed metals back through while the Selective Sen­sor option is on to create a high-value stainless steel scrap product for a con­sumer willing to pay for the upgraded material.

“Depending on market conditions, they can either continue to do this or they can market an up­graded mixed met­als product from what they were al­ready producing,” Ciccotelli says.

The Milliron shredder, which is from Texas Shred­der Inc., began op­erating in April of 2005. Milliron Re­cycling owner Grant Milliron says the eddy currents have done a superb job captur­ing aluminum and copper in the post-shredder stream, while the Steinert ISS units (whether on the all-met­als setting or the Selective Sensor setting) are catching stainless steel and alumi­num, steel, copper, lead and brass that would otherwise be landfilled.

Grant says the Steinert machines are technologi­cally complex, yet built to last.

“They are essentially trouble-free pieces of equip­ment, providing smooth op­eration and requiring little maintenance.”

Ciccotelli says of Milliron Recycling, “They purchased the first of its kind in the United States and they are pleased with the Selective Sensor option.”

December 2005