Scrap Expo session preview: Technology Spotlight—Refining Recovered Metal

As the demand for more refined and specialized metal recycling packages—like low-copper ferrous shred, furnace-ready aluminum and highly refined copper—continues to rise, ferrous and nonferrous metal recyclers are under pressure to evolve to meet these demands.

At Scrap Expo 2025, Sept. 16-17 in Louisville, Kentucky, a group of industry suppliers and processors will come together in a two-part session titled Technology Spotlight: Refining Recovered Metal, Sept. 17 from 10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Eastern, to discuss the latest innovations and how these technologies are changing the way metals are recovered and refined.

Moderated by Ronak Shah, CEO of Levitated Metals, New Caney, Texas, Part 1 features technology highlights from equipment suppliers, while Part 2 features operators who share their experiences as they try to meet rising demand from metallics consumers that want to further decarbonize their aluminum production and produce green, low-carbon steel while also addressing rising copper content in recycled steel.

For the full list of speakers, click here (link to these two sessions on the agenda).

In anticipation of this session, Recycling Today spoke with Shah about how scrap recyclers are keeping up with the demand for more refined and specialized metal recycling packages, the challenges that come along with that and what attendees can expect to learn from the panelists.

Recycling Today (RT): What’s driving demand for more refined and specialized metal recycling packages today?

Ronak Shah (RS): Since the dawn of time, the scrap metal industry has always tried to achieve the requirements of the consumer to the extent that technology and economic processing value allowed.

When you look back at the last 30 to 40 years, there’s been a lot of improvements in that space—shredders have considerably grown in size, and technology like eddy currents, X-rays, metal inductive sensors and robotics have been developed and implemented. I think that is what’s leading to the increased demand.

More recently, there’s a larger factor associated with onshoring and domestic consumer relationships, whether that’s from an America-first perspective or a tariff perspective. In certain situations, we’ve been concerned that the material we’re exporting is environmentally challenging for overseas consumers to process, so we will have to find more environmentally acceptable ways to get them the units needed for the world economy.

In summary, consumers want it, and we can make money doing it.

RT: How are recyclers meeting these demands?

RS: This is something the suppliers will cover in the first half of this session and the processors in the second.

On the steel side, you’re starting to see more substantial rollouts of lower-copper shred technologies, or what I like to call “spontaneous magnetics,” like ballistic separation, machine vision and robotics to remove copper-containing meatballs, wire, etc. I think almost everyone putting in a decent-sized shredder today is looking at and implementing this technology in some capacity.

On the nonferrous side, you have a whole host of complex technologies I like to call ‘Star Wars-style solutions,’ such as [technologies to sort] cast and wrought alloys and robotics that everyone likely heard about in 2015 or 2016 and are now ready for high-volume production rollouts.

RT: What are the biggest challenges recyclers face when upgrading to produce specification-grade materials?

RS: Three challenges come to mind. The first is the value and the consumer base for nonupgraded material or leftover material. The second is technology as it takes a long time from when equipment is announced to when it’s truly ready to be scaled for production. Plus, you have the additional challenge of customers feeling comfortable enough to invest in and implement the technology. Lastly, there’s the challenge of a machine being a machine. To make a product, there’s often a process [that involves] multiple machines, quality control practices and changes on the customer side to accept certain product packages.

These challenges, along with others, will be discussed during the session by the suppliers that are creating and selling full solutions and the operators that are buying and implementing them.

RT: As you prepare for this two-part session at Scrap Expo, what do you hope attendees take away from the discussion?

RS: This session is a good opportunity for attendees to listen to industry leaders and for the suppliers and operators to listen to each other. That is a valuable use of time and a chance for us to share stories and lessons learned with each other.

In part one, the suppliers will quickly describe some of the breadth of technology that’s out there, and in part two, the operators will share their experiences with different equipment and technologies.

We all know not every innovation works as intended—you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. However, the beauty of the scrap industry is that we are willing to try things, and if it doesn’t work, we learn, move on and try again.