Using X-Ray Technology with our Dual-Energy System™ the Steinert XSS Series Sorters will upgrade your valuable materials quality. With it’s long and fast running belt, the XSS creates a realistic image of the material to be sorted by x-raying it at two energy levels. This enables the XSS to accurately detect the type of material passing through. The result is a machine per fectly suited to follow Steinert MTE, NES and ISS Separators.

The XSS also makes it possible to separate aluminum and magnesium from heavier alloys. Even composite materials and textures in organics are recognized by the XSS. Call Steinert today and discover what the XSS Series Sorters can do for your business.

Applications

One important application of X-ray sorting is the separation of light and heavy metals after the iron component has been removed by magnetic separators, and after eddy current separators have extracted the non-ferrous metals. The XSS makes it possible to separate aluminium and magnesium from a fraction rich in heavy metals such as copper, bronze, zinc and lead. It is also possible to separate cast and wrought aluminium-based alloys.

When processing minerals, metal-bearing rock can be separated from metal-poor rock or coal from country rock. This saves large amounts of energy in the area of fine pulverisation and fine-grain sorting, thus substantially improving the economics of current mining operations.

The separation of light and heavy metals makes possible for the first time a fully automated process and dry sorting process, even when handling larger grain sizes of up to 200 mm.

In the metals sorting area, the XSS X-ray sorting system belongs directly downstream from the existing eddy current separator. Once the iron components have been reclaimed from the metal scrap by means of magnetic separation, the eddy current separator splits the remaining materials mix into non-metals and non-ferrous metals. The XSS then sorts these non-ferrous metals into aluminium, magnesium and copper brass, bronze and zinc.

Composite and even halogen- or heavy metals containing organic material can be recognised and separated by the x-ray sorting system.

In addition to ensuring that the particles are closely and reliably separated, the long, fast-running belt also ensures that these particles are recognised and classified in fractions of a second and according to the criteria set in the flexible system software, as they pass the X-ray source and camera. Reliable, fast-action compressed air valves ensure that the desired particles are discharged cleanly.

The resolution of the present blow-out unit makes it possible to achieve resolutions of less than 12.5 mm on the blow-out bar. The sensitivity of the X-ray recognition can be set to just a few square millimetres.

Technology

The technology at the heart of the XSS X-ray sorting system is based on the transmission of X-rays, i.e. X-rays are shone through the material to be sorted and an X-ray sensitive camera determines the intensity of the transmitted radiation. A computer determines the difference between the incident and the transmitted radiation. The resulting intensity difference — the absorption — can be used to draw conclusions about the atomic composition of the illuminated material. The system creates an image with almost realistic quality — sufficient to enable image evaluations to be carried out. The absorption depends on both the solid density and the material thickness. The larger the atomic mass and the thicker the material, the greater the absorption. In order to compensate for this technical problem, the material to be sorted is illuminated from two different directions. This is the “Dual-Energy” system. The resulting different transmission paths make it possible to ignore the material thickness.

The XSS X-ray sorting system from STEINERT is based on the ISS induction sorting system, which has been in use in materials processing technology with great success for many years. An X-ray system with thousands of units already in use provides the detector, so that two extremely well-proven components are brought together in the XSS to produce a robust piece of equipment.

The XSS X-ray sorting system represents the latest development in the field of sensor-based sorting technology. The system has been developed by Steinert on the basis of experienced gained from applications of the successful ISS induction sorting system. This technology enables the use of completely new types of sorting criteria for raw materials preparation. The decisive factor for the sorting operation is the density of the material, in particular of its most important chemical elements.

A typical feature of all sorting systems is that every individual particle in the material flow is recognised and classified. If the classification matches the previously defined criteria, the particle is gated out by a powerful blast of compressed air.

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