Eriez test center open for business

Sorting equipment maker Eriez says it has boosted its ability to offer materials sorting testing services for the recycling industry at its Central Test Lab (CTL). The CTL is located at the company’s Wager Road plant in Erie, Pennsylvania.

According to Eriez, the majority of test work for recycling applications focuses on ferrous and nonferrous magnetic separation. Test equipment used most frequently for recycling industry customers includes eddy current separators, magnetic drum separators, suspended permanent magnets and electrostatic separators.

The company says test procedures can be customized for each customer and can involve materials such as zorba, twitch, zebra, zurik and other mixed shredded metals, plus auto shredder residue (ASR) fines, wire choppings and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic flake contaminated with aluminum.

“After processing customers’ materials on the recycling equipment, we can determine recovery rates and make judgments on material grade,” says Chris Ramsdell, a recycling product manager with Eriez. “With these recovery and grade figures, we can often help the customer determine equipment payback periods to support their investment,” he adds.

After lab testing, Eriez says it can map out potential process flows, mix and match different pieces of equipment and determine recovery rates based on where a particular piece of equipment will be located in a process flow. “Our experience has shown we can provide reliable and accurate predictions for plant-scale results based on our lab-scale tests,” says Ramsdell.