THE CHALLENGE: 

A major Japanese automotive manufacturer has a ferrous metal casting operation where post process silica sand with ferrous metal content is fed into containers and shipped to area landfills.

The company’s environmental (green) policy and Kaizen Zero Waste initiative encouraged them to explore options extracting the metal particles from the silica sand. The customer estimated that as much as 10% of the total compound contained metals.

THE ANALYSIS:

In the course of meetings in the Japanese manufacturer’s plant, Dempsco’s sales engineer worked with manufacturing engineers to collect data and take measurements toward researching a solution to the problem. Additionally, the sales engineer obtained sample material for testing. Eriez Magnetics, a global manufacturer of industrial magnetic products ran tests in their world-class lab utilizing a magnetic drum separator. The resulting test at Eriez proved that a surprising 30% of the total compound was ferrous metal. That high percentage of separation would easily justify the cost of the equipment.

THE SOLUTION:

	Based on material flow estimates and separation requirements the Dempsco and Eriez Engineers recommended an Eriez Criss-Cross Circuit magnetic drum and HFP drum housing to assure efficient separation. The customer purchased an Eriez drum and housing and integrated it into their existing feed tube and container structure.
They then added a second container to capture the now separated ferrous material. The success of the project was well received by management because they were now able to resell the separated metals to a recycler while having a positive impact on our environment by preventing metals from leaching into our earth’s soil.