Foundation of the Steinert Company

1889: Ferdinand Steinert established his company — Ferdinand Steinert Elektromagnetische Aufbereitungsanlagen’ - in the city of Cologne. He finds a large market for separating magnets. Although the phenomenon of magnetism has been known since the eleventh century - when the Chinese found pieces of iron ore that acted as natural magnets - it had hardly found economic application until this time.

One of the still-small company’s first customers was the steel industry. The engineer Steinert developed magnets that could be used to reclain iron from steel slack and debris as well as from foundry and steelworks waste. This iron is especially useful as scrap for charging blast furnaces and steel furnaces. It was an interesting process, which was quickly extended to separating slack from coal, thus winning the German railways as the next large customer. Right from these early beginnings, the objective of the company founder was clear: recycling!

Ideal Business Conditions

1900: The business conditions for the new Steinert company were ideal; there was a steady flow of orders from customers in the mining, shipbuilding, shipyard and steel industries. Over time, the customers' demands grew. Initially, the separation magnets had to separate out crude hammers or iron plates, but gradually the objects to be separated became smaller. Eventually the machines had to precisely filter out thin igniting wires and bent drill rods from the bulk material.

Steinert reacted by expanding its product range in line with the constantly changing market conditions. It also decided to start selling magnets as individual units immediately. It’s not just their separation capacity that is increasing — the market for lifting magnets is growing in significance.

Acquisition of the Buchholz Company

1931: The company Ferdinand Steinert Elektromagnetische Aufbereitungsanlagen was purchased by Julius Christian Buchholz. The two companies were an ideal fit, and were to expand their market positions in the coming decades. Their great advantage was intensive research and development work.

The result of their union came into being in the thirties, as Steinert investigated the anodizing process. The company was the first one to use anodized aluminium conductors for winding coils. The anodized oxide layer served as an electrical insulator, making it unnecessary to wrap or varnish the aluminium conductor. It was a process which was to see many improvements over the course of the coming decades.

The company site in Cologne was effectively destroyed during World War II. After the war, rebuilding pushed ahead rapidly, and the product range was extended. Steinert began to establish itself in the international market.

The 1960s

1960s: The global economic climate is favourable, Steinert increases its lead over the competition with numerous innovations.

The New Lifting Magnet Series

1963: The company presented the prototype of a new lifting magnet series at its own trade fair stand in Hanover. The advantages of the new series were its light weight, enhanced magnetic power and low price.

Meanwhile, starting in the 1960s, the issues of waste management and recycling steadily grew in importance. Disappearing natural resources, environmental protection regulations and the explosively rising prices of raw materials made new technologies imperative.

The First Electrical Suspension Magnet

1966: It extracts iron from shredder waste, household refuse, building rubble, refuse and steelworks slack. Several thousand of these machines are in use worldwide.

The Anofol Strip

1969: The company's range of products included the following: suspension magnets, lift-out magnets, electromagnet belt rollers, electromagnet and permanent magnet drums and magnet drum separators. In addition, the company also produced round and rectangular lifting magnets and a large number of specialized magnets.

In the late 1960s, Steinert also came up with a development that made it in the world market leader, forcing the USA to take second place: Anofol strip. Whereas US manufacturers used traditional copper windings for their coils, Steinert was the first company to use anodized aluminium strip. The compact coil that can be produced using this method has an outstanding cable fill factor and extremely good thermal conductivity. This innovation is now being used in other branches of industry as well.

In the following years, the company's development and production processes increasingly shifted toward separation: The market share of lifting magnets declines due to a changing economy. The company responds by making the satisfaction of its customers’ growing demands its main mission.

The Eccentric Non-Ferrous Separator

1987: Steinert presents the first eccentric non-ferrous separator. It is used to reclaim non-ferrous metals such as aluminium, copper, magnesium or brass and replaces the centric system. Steinert is once more confirmed as the leader of the entire sector.

New Millenium, New Products, Global Orientation

The new century has commenced with a carefully coordinated generation change at the company and the beginning of a development that will bring new, and in some cases, unique equipment onto the sorting technology market. New subsidiaries and sales co-operations continue to expand STEINERT’s global presence.

The advances in sensor and computer technology make it possible to further develop the color sorting systems FSS and the induction sorting systems ISS®. Both systems aim to further increase the metal yield by means of completely mechanical processes. In particular, the induction sorting system ISS® - launched in 2001 - experiences worldwide acceptance in the metal recycling market. At the same time, new markets are also opening up in the areas of substitute fuel production, wood preparation and plastics recycling. At the start of 2006, 65 units are already in use around the world.

Recycling plant technology has reached at the beginning of 2000 an industrial scale. That means that STEINERT systems are continually getting bigger too: Today, the non-ferrous metals separator NES has an over 2 m working width as standard; the ISS has a working width of 3 m! By the end of 2007, around 2,200 non-ferrous metals separators with eccentric magnet systems have been sold, making it the world’s best-selling eddy current separator.

Steinert is also stepping out into new territory for the sector with the development and presentation of the high-gradient magnetic filter HGF. This permanent magnet matrix separator makes it possible, for the first time, to separate the finest magnetic components from process fluids with an efficiency of better than 90 %. Today, the HGF can be found not just in European steelworks, but also, for example, in Chinese plants. What’s more, driven by strong demand for HGF technology from the biotechnology sector, this rapidly developing field has been given a further boost.

The wet drum separator NTS is also used to separate the finest components from process fluids and for performing enriching processes in order to achieve a compact sludge. This unit too, is in use worldwide.

The high-gradient magnetic separator HGS, which was introduced in 2003, separates out the finest magnetic components in salt and construction chemicals. To date, this unit has been mainly sold into the German market.

The overpowering success of Steinert’s products in the North American market has lead to the foundation of Steinert US, LLC in St. Petersburg, Florida — a joint venture between Steinert and the enterprise that has represented the company in the USA for many years. The US-based customers have rewarded this important step by dramatically increasing their order volumes. They are also making use of the extended infrastructure.

The takeover of the activities of Sturton-Gill in Australia in 2004 is another step toward a global customer portfolio. Steinert Sturton-Gill Magnetics Pty. Ltd., as it is now known, is one of the leading manufacturers of magnets in the Asia-Pacific region. The company, whose headquarters are in Melbourne, also supplies both the growing recycling industry and the substantial minerals industry in the region. A large proportion of the manufactured products are exported from Australia to China.

Presently, Steinert has remained on course for success and has set up a local sales network with dynamic and established companies in Brazil and Japan. The response to date from both of these markets has been encouraging.