Eriez touts evolution of P-Rex drum magnet

Erie, Pennsylvania-based Eriez says 2020 marks 10 years since its P-Rex (Permanent Rare Earth Xtreme) Scrap Drums were introduced to the market. Eriez Recycling Market Manager Mike Shattuck says the company has continued to develop and upgrade the drum during those 10 years.

“While we initially marketed P-Rex mainly for scrap recycling, today it is found in a variety of other successful applications and features many improvements,” Shattuck says.

Eriez describes P-Rex as having a powerful magnetic circuit that is up to 40 percent stronger than electromagnetic drums and is capable of moving ferrous scrap at twice the distance. “With a consistently high magnetic field from edge to edge, P-Rex has a much higher recovery than standard drums and facilitates more agitation to remove ferrous from debris, providing a cleaner ferrous product,” the company states.

Shattuck says the Eriez research and development staff set out to design a drum to recover electric motors (known as meatballs) and spheres from the shredded scrap recycling process as a means to keep those materials out of the fluff, in part to reduce the likelihood of fires. “Although P-Rex is extremely effective for this purpose, we soon became convinced that we could further harness the power of this drum in additional ways and incorporate improvements,” he comments.

Eriez also has partnered the P-Rex with its Shred1 Ballistic Metal Separator, with the P-Rex providing additional copper-bearing material to the Shred1. This increases the copper pickings, resulting in increased revenue, the firm says. “By utilizing the P-Rex in conjunction with the Shred1, copper pickings from many yards went from 6 to 8 pounds per ton to as high as 12 pounds per ton of shred,” Shattuck adds.

An “under-flow” process developed by Eriez uses the P-Rex Scrap Drum and its multiple agitations to provide what the company calls a cleaner ferrous product. Ferrous scrap is passed under the drum instead of over the top, allowing fluff to fall directly to the nonferrous conveyor instead of back into the line of feed.

With the multiple agitations of the  P-Rex and its traction plate technology designed to keep ferrous scrap from bunching up on the drum surface, the result is a much cleaner ferrous product, Eriez says.

“The huge field of the P-Rex and its extraordinary strength make it ideal for waste-to-energy plants where a large gap is required,” Shattuck says. “The raw strength also lends itself to slag recycling operations where trace amounts of ferrous may be attached to large pieces of nonferrous. The unmatched power of P-Rex is exceptionally effective in these very difficult applications.”

A video clip of the P-Rex in action can be found on this web page.