Page 27 from: April 2013
27April 2013
in big cities, for instance those in Africa with a
population of 1-5 million where they do not have
too many steelmaking facilities,’ he observes.
Above all, the Danieli NanoMill with its inte-
grated shredder and shear is said to be an answer
to a very common issue: the way recycling is
organised – or, rather, not organised at all,
according to Danieli. Even today, recycling man-
agement ‘leaves much to be desired’ in some
parts of the world. This structural gap is a sig-
nificant stumbling block for small scrap players
because they must rely on properly-treated
material acquired from elsewhere, most often
overseas. In some countries, such as those in the
Middle East, everything has to be brought to the
site over long distances. ‘This means that all the
material has to travel 2000 or 3000 km to end
up at the right facility,’ states Thomas Klein,
executive manager at Danieli Centro Met Swiss.
To name but a few nations, Kazakhstan, Mon-
golia, Peru and Brazil have voiced similar com-
plaints, with scrap all across the country not
collected and not prepared, leaving the industry
to look beyond its own domestic horizon for
better-quality material and losing money as a
consequence. But it’s not only a matter of
money, Klein and Villemin agree. If you load
an electric furnace or an induction furnace with
untreated scrap, the overall yield will be ‘much,
much lower’ in comparison to an operation
using prepared scrap. That’s why Danieli
declares that the objective of its new concept is
to take care of the full process involving scrap,
ranging from source to final product.
In-house solution
‘In order to solve the scrap issue, we realised we
had to be very innovative,’ Villemin explains. ‘We
soon figured it would be better to have an inte-
grated shredder close by, as part of a NanoMill.
You see, in the case of Iraq, we could install a
NanoMill in the country’s capital Baghdad. As a
result, the impact on trucking is so big that logis-
tics costs average 50% less than those for a stand-
ard mill. Essentially, we allow operations to
minimise outsourcing by providing the process-
ing equipment scrap players need, in-house.’
Transport isn’t the only operational element
where scrap enterprises stand to benefit finan-
cially. When comparing the purchase of scrap
from overseas to the option of investing in a
NanoMill, there is ‘a minimum difference of
US$ 20 to US$ 40’ in terms of material costs.
Besides, for a market characterised by wide fluc-
tuations in scrap prices and severe changes to the
value of the final product, every minute matters,
underlines Villemin. ‘Metals recycling is nearly
always a question of timing,’ he states. ‘In other
words, you cannot waste time; you must act fast.’
Since Danieli started promoting its idea about
a year and a half ago, it has sold five NanoMills.
‘We are currently talking to many companies
worldwide,’ comments the team at Danieli Cen-
tro Met Swiss. ‘I believe we will be able to
launch around 40 projects in the following
three to five years,’ estimates Villemin, who adds
that demand for integrated systems has ignited
in, among other places, South America.
Downsized
In explaining the interest in the NanoMill,
Klein highlights that this does not constitute a
new technology. ‘Basically, the existing method
was rearranged – you might say downsized – to
represent the production of the group we are
targeting,’ he says. ‘This rearrangement to the
correct sizes is the success behind the NanoMill.’
The company is confident about the concept’s
prospects; it absolutely intends to focus more on
manufacturing NanoMills and thus dedicate
itself to becoming a specialist in this technology,
says Villemin. He argues that, even in light of
various past and upcoming consolidations, Dan-
ieli will be in position to ‘ramp up’ its activities.
And he asserts: ‘It isn’t a matter of “will it be a
success or not?” because this is the right process
for materials that many businesses need.’
Danieli NanoMill points the way to the future
The integrated shredder provides a uniform
fragment size and automated metals recovery.
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