Highest aluminium purity powers the circular economy

Steinert’s dry density separation technology based on x-ray transmission (XRT) is being successfully used for heavy and light metal separation in metal recycling. Its latest version, EVO 5.0, has noteworthy developments including automatic x-ray monitoring and calibration to ensure high detection and sorting quality.

The system can achieve extremely pure aluminium with a 99.8% purity. The technology also helps separate wrought and cast aluminium and enrich solid magnesium, which is crucial for the quality of secondary aluminium. The Steinert XSS T EVO 5.0 has numerous success stories demonstrating its efficiency.

Incinerator bottom ash

Scanmetals produces non-ferrous metals from incinerator bottom ash at three European sites, selling the separated metal fractions to primary and secondary smelters, refineries, foundries, and mills. Steinert provides sorting solutions for all non-ferrous metals. The centralised procurement method saves time and allows the owner to focus on developing innovative recycling ideas.

The Steinert XSS T EVO 5.0 system produces very pure aluminium through XRT with a detection rate of up to 99.8%. This results in CO₂ savings of 90% as high-purity secondary raw materials are needed for high-grade applications.

More than price

Stena Recycling has a network of 178 plants in Europe and annually recycles over six million tonnes of complex waste materials. The Stena Nordic Recycling Centre alone handles 500 000 tonnes and saves 870 000 tonnes of emissions.

Jesper Fournaise, outbound sales manager, describes how advancements in technological sorting have allowed it to meet maximum quality standards and use x-ray technology to produce high-quality secondary raw materials. Fournaise stresses that sorting is one of the most important primary stages and that Stena Recycling uses sorting technology from Steinert because it delivers the exact values it needs for copper, zinc, manganese, and magnesium.

High levels of reliability

Stemin, an aluminium recycling company in Italy, uses Steinert sorting technology for dry density separation and XRT to ensure maximum purity of its output. The company produces up to 70 000 tonnes of secondary aluminium annually, ready for the furnace or further processing at its own foundry.

A board member of Stemin, Olivo Foglieni, praises Steinert’s equipment for reliability and sorting quality, highlighting the importance of avoiding downtime for the entire supply chain. Stemin has replaced four machines from competitors with Steinert x-ray sorting technology in recent years because of its ongoing research and development and more capable sorting systems, helping the company to produce high-quality aluminium.

LIBS for even greater purity

Steinert provides sorting technology, including XRT and laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), for recycling plants. LIBS can analyse the aluminium content and components in real-time to determine the type of aluminium alloy, allowing various alloys to be classified effectively and reducing downcycling.

AMAG Austria Metall has used the Steinert LIBS sorting system since 2019 to sort various aluminium alloys. Reuse can be significantly improved by producing pure aluminium alloys from recycled aluminium, leading to closed material recycling.