Everyone to his trade: Shredder, Baler-shear or baling press

Nowadays metal scrap is a free traded commodity that along with oil, gold, gas, silver makes additional value to its producers.

And as well as other commodities it has several types which differ in their producing process including energy consumption, automation of the process, cost of necessary equipment, purity level, etc. For the moment there are three main scrap processing procedures: Shredding, baling and shearing.

Of course we need to add that usage of processed steel scrap as a raw material instead of iron ore will bring energy savings up to 74%. And also it will decrease air pollution dramatically, some experts say – up to 86%. The physical characteristics of steel scrap have an important influence on melting, both technically and economically, and can lead to a loss of melting time, increased power and electrode consumption, a greater risk of furnace damage, excess slag production and reduced iron yield if the scrap is unsuitable. Scrap processing is, therefore, of considerable interest to steelmakers as well as the metal recycling industry. 

Shredding

This process provides the scrap of best quality as per purity and size requirements. The steel mill furnaces get the best ratio of consumed energy/quality of yielded iron. Special institute’s research shows that recently proportion of scrap processing using shredders is set to increase substantially.

Shredding plants help to:

• - Avoid or minimize the risk of damage due to overloading caused by unshreddable heavy scrap pieces
• - Control production, scrap size and density for greater flexibility of use

Company Jiangsu Wanshida Hydraulic Machinery offers to its clients the whole series of scrap crushing and shredding machines and lines. Recently we have supplied our lines to Russian and Moldova where one can observe a high interest to such machinery.

Scrap baling presses

It is an old and confident way of recycling. Baling was popular some 30 years ago and had great prospects. But now many recyclers and foundries are trying to avoid this process, because of impossible to control the inner content of the bale. Of course recyclers with long and well-established work record still make use of balers because nobody can doubt the quality of their products.

As to our clients we can offer a rigid and confident series of hydraulic baling presses Y83 with different pressing force and working chamber. Our balers work all over Eastern Europe, China, South-East Asia, Middle East, etc.

Scrap shears

Compared with shredding and baling, scrap shears offer the most universal processing technique for different grades of scrap (see next picture). All scrap types can be processed on scrap shears, and for heavy and demolition scrap, shearing is the only suitable automatic recycling technique.

Over past decade our engineering office has designed several types of scrap recycling shears and we implemented them in life. Most of our baler-shears work in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, China.

Conclusions

Modern scrap recycling plants must be capable of handling a wide range of different scrap grades economically as well as meeting the size, density and purity requirements demanded by steel mills and foundries. To support these aims advanced scrap preparation machines are available that provide favourable processing costs, high availability and good process flexibility.

QUALITY OF METAL SCRAP: SITUATION IN UKRAINE

Every steel mill is looking for a metal scrap with highest possible quality. But not every scrap supplier can meet such requirements.

What parameters should have metal scrap to achieve quality standards? Most experts agree that it should have high density (not less than 0.8-1.3 tons per cubic meter) and be cleared from any inclusions (non-ferrous metals, plastics, dust, rust, etc).

Currently the metal scrap is losing its density – suppliers deliver less weight with more volume. Some experts say t is because of shortage of heavy industrial scrap and increasing amount of household thin and light scrap.

Methods of metal scrap recycling

For the moment there are four ways of recycling which are being used in the world practice: shredder recycling, baling, recycling by means of baler-shear and welding torch cutting.

Shredder recycling is the way that gives the best result in terms of purity of the scrap and its readiness for usage in steel mills. But shredder equipment costs high and 90% of metal scrap recyclers is not able to buy it. Also it needs high per cent of old cars scrap and household scrap, and as to Ukraine we cannot boast that we have a lot of it so far. 

Second way of recycling is baling. It is widely used for many years all over the world. But it still has some hidden dangers. It is difficult to check the content of the bales received from scrap suppliers. Over recent years there is a tendency when the per cent of non-metal inclusion is getting higher in bales. Steel mills are forced to reduce the amount of baled scrap in their activity.

But the most effective way in terms of price/quality ratio is recycling with baler-shear. The process includes primary pressing of the metal scrap in pressing chamber and then the cutting according to fixed standards in the cutting device of the baler-shear. The baler-shear can recycle large volume heavy scrap as well as thin household and mixed light scrap. The capacity of the baler-shear can vary from 8 to 50 tons per hour. Also during the process in baler-shear there is so-called purification of the metal scrap because when it is being pressed and cut the dust, rust and other non-metal particles get off the scrap (up to 4.7% of the total weight) and steel mills (it is most important!) can check the quality of the supplied material right away.

Some 10-20 years ago the future of baled metal scrap seemed very promising. But now it turned out that before baling there should be implemented an additional process of clearing the scrap from dangerous particles (for example, non-ferrous metals). This labor consuming process aroused difficulties for the scrap recyclers all over the world and still waits for its solution. Statistics show that year by year the per cent of baled scrap in comparison to scrap after baler-shear is getting smaller. As to our production we move with the times. We propose to our clients budget variant of baler-shear model Wanshida-Light Q43A-3150 at 55 000 USD