Metalworking Magnets

Industrial Magnetics, Inc. (IMI) recently designed a dual-drum magnetic separator to meet the high purity level demands of a customer's mixed-metals recovery application.

The customer needed to remove ferrous metal contaminants from a conveyed product stream of non-ferrous metals, such as aluminum and titanium, which would then be resold as raw materials for further processing. A high purity outcome was essential for capturing the maximum selling price at market.

Due to the nature of their design, magnetic drum separators are continuously self-cleaning units. Material to be processed generally enters the top of the magnetic drum separator and flows across the surface of the drum. As the drum shell rotates around a stationary magnetic field, all non-ferrous product, which is unaffected by the magnet, falls free from the drum into the cleaned material flow. Any ferrous tramp metal is captured by the magnetic field and held onto the drum's surface. As the shell of the drum rotates, the metal is carried past a diverter and released outside of the magnetic field.

For this application, a dual-drum magnetic separator design was employed given the customer's faster rate of processing and inconsistencies in the product burden depth. By passing the product stream over two, consecutive magnetic drums, the customer was assured of the highest level of separation possible.

IMI has also designed unique "up-and-over" or "under-fed" drum separator designs for a wide array of markets such as feed, grain, plastics, abrasives, tire recycling and many more. Additionally, the unit can be provided as the drum only or as a complete assembly with the housing and drive included.