The company says the conveyors are optimized for the recycling industry to improve sorting efficiency.

Redwave has expanded its product portfolio of sensor-based sorting technology to include conveyor belts specially optimized for the recycling sector.

Redwave is headquartered in Austria, with branch offices in Germany, China, Singapore and the United States.

"In the past, we often had to live with compromise solutions when purchasing standardized conveyor belts,” says Redwave Managing Director Manfred Hödl. “In many cases, the systems lacked adaptability with regard to customer conditions and needs, such as a small footprint. In addition, we were dependent on the supplier with regard to delivery dates.”

For these reasons, Redwave says it has developed conveyor belts specifically designed for the recycling industry. "We know the recycling industry and how different materials behave on conveyors in the course of several years. The choice of scrapers, belts, etc., is already made during the planning and design process," he says.

The right conveyor belt optimizes the performance of sorting equipment and improves throughput, according to the company.

The requirements for conveyor belts in the recycling industry differ significantly from the requirements of other industries, Redwave says. Even within the recycling industry, the requirements vary based on the material being processed.

Redwave conveyor belts feature improvements of the chute connection for feeding the sorting machines. They offer easy accessibility, which plays a major role during cleaning and maintenance because contamination and blockages are not uncommon in recycling plants. For example, removable sheet metal cladding and swiveling floor panels make cleaning easier and minimize the amount of maintenance required, the company says. External lubrication points also improve accessibility and offer time savings.

Dust also can be an issue in recycling facilities. For this reason, Redwave has developed belt seals (covers and gutter seals) that are adapted for the material the recycling plant handles.

The conveyor belts are installed in Redwave systems as troughed belt conveyor, sliding belt conveyor and chain belt conveyor. Their modular design allows the length of the conveyor to be modified easily and also allows additional equipment (sensors, weighing system, scraper) to be retrofitted easily, according to the company.

Redwave says it purchases quality parts from well-known European manufacturers. These high-quality parts, such as the drive system, bearings, rollers and belts, guarantee long service life.

Using Redwave Mate, a form of artificial intelligence, the conveyor belts are networked into the entire sorting system to aid with optimizing the sorting process.

The 22,000-to-40,000-pound capacity forklift series features pneumatic tires.

Mitsubishi Logisnext Americas, Houston, the exclusive manufacturer and provider of Mitsubishi forklift trucks across North, Central and South America, has announced a series of forklift trucks ranging from 22,000 to 40,000 pounds of capacity. The forklifts have internal combustion engines and pneumatic tires. 

Spanning seven different capacities, four different wheelbases and three load center options, these forklifts are customizable and equipped with features to help increase productivity, improve the operator experience and minimize downtime through ease maintenance and onboard diagnostics, according to the manufacturer.

Powered by a Cummins B4.5 Tier 4 Final diesel engine, these forklifts are designed with the strength and durability to handle the tough material handling applications. They also feature a rugged mast, robust chassis and thicker components for greater performance and reliability, Mitsubishi says. 

“We are excited to offer this lineup of large, diesel pneumatic forklifts to our customers,” says John Sneddon, executive vice president, sales and marketing, Mitsubishi Logisnext Americas. These heavy-duty forklifts are not only comfortable to operate and easy to maintain, they offer the reliable performance that our customers have come to expect from the Mitsubishi forklift trucks name.”

The forklifts also are designed for easy maintenance. The one-piece engine hood allows complete and simple access from the ground level for daily inspections, while all major powertrain components can be fully accessed through the side-tilting cab with the standard, easy-to-use manual pump tilt or optional power tilt.

Electronics recycler ERI, headquartered in Fresno, California, is leveraging technology to improve e-scrap processing.

In the first half of 2019, electronics recycling company ERI, which is headquartered in Fresno, California, with locations throughout the U.S., installed an artificial intelligence- (AI-) driven Super Automated Machine (SAM) sorting robot at its Fresno plant. Closely on the heels of that installation, the company added the technology to its Plainfield, Indiana, plant. Within two years, ERI Executive Chairman John Shegerian says SAM will be deployed throughout the company’s six other locations.

“The technology revolution is what created the e-waste problem,” he says. “Now we can leverage technology to address it.”

SAM is part of ERI’s scrap metal sorting line and separates shredded material, such as aluminum, printed circuit boards (PCBs), yellow brass, capacitors and copper products, into individual material streams. A vision system identifies the target material, directing a robotic arm that uses a vacuum system to pick the desired material. According to ERI, SAM performs approximately 70 picks per minute and can process 10 different streams of shredded material.

But SAM is not alone. That system is joined by ERNIE (Electronic Recyclers Next Innovative Efficiency), a robotic flat panel display processor. This proprietary technology can shred 5,000 pounds of flat-screen TVs and monitors per hour in a controlled environment that features a carbon fume scrubber, according to the company.

“No one we know of has a real self-contained flat-screen processing system [like ERNIE],” Shegerian says.

The shredded material produced by ERNIE is routed to ERI’s metal sorting line for commodity-level recovery aided by SAM.

ERI developed ERNIE and SAM in partnership with Amp Robotics of Denver. The process took more than a year, Shegerian says.

Following SAM’s implementation, “It took us about six weeks of machine learning to reach 95 percent efficiency,” he says. By week 10, it had increased to 98 percent efficiency. ERI was able to transfer those gains to its Indiana facility when the technology was installed there.

“This is like our McDonald’s University here in Fresno,” Shegerian says. “This is where we started the company. This is where we built the world’s largest electronic waste shredding machine. We tinker and we evolve all our technologies here first, and then we take them into Indiana second, then Boston and then across America. Everything starts here until we perfect it, and then we take it out from there,” he explains.

When electronics arrive at ERI’s facilities, they undergo triage to separate items that are suitable for reuse from those destined for recycling. Contractual issues also factor into this decision. “Some clients want everything destroyed,” Shegerian says. People are integral to this process.

After a trip through the shredder, which produces a particle size of approximately 2 inches, the material encounters an eddy current separator and then SAM.

The combination of ERI’s shredding technology with SAM’s AI and robotics has allowed ERI to produce “cleaner and more liberated commodities,” he says, with “faster production times.”

Shegerian says SAM “picks faster than we can with manual labor,” adding that the technology is 25 percent faster by comparison. SAM also creates a cleaner picking line for ERI’s manual sorters. “It’s going after the lower value stuff so our employees can go after the higher value material.”

He says ERI has seen its overall quality of its recovered nonferrous materials and PCBs increase since implementing the technology. The company also has been able to track its volumes and the composition of the material stream. “It’s constantly being fine-tuned, and the machine learning constantly goes on.”

ERNIE allows ERI to remove its employees from a potentially dangerous environment and makes the processing flat-screen monitors environmentally cleaner. The company went from 10 employees on its flat-screen processing line to three. ERI reassigned those displaced employees to other tasks, including data wiping, parts harvesting and testing and repair, Shegerian says.

The AI the system employs provides ERI with constant data on the performance of its shredders, as well as the robotic sorters, helping the company make adjustments to improve efficiency. Anthony Borges, who is vice president of operations for ERI, monitors the data from the system, noting changes in production so they can be addressed. “We’re constantly tweaking for the better,” Shegerian says.

Additionally, he says, “As Amp gets better at what they do, we’ll get better we do. We’re always perfecting our stuff in-house. And, also, we’re looking for our partners to perfect their technology and drive it to be better.”

To keep the technology performing optimally, daily and weekly inspections and servicing are necessary, he says. The ERI team monitors SAM for air line leaks, inspects the robots’ suction cups, checks the air pressure and cleans the filter on the control panel’s air conditioning unit daily. “A lot of maintenance is needed to make sure that it’s a high-functioning part of our company.”

ERI is operating two shifts, Shegerian says, with maintenance performed prior to the start of each shift.

“The technological revolution is what created the e-waste tsunami, and now we could leverage cutting-edge technologies, such as AI and robotics, to help us fix the problem,” he says. “When you get to leverage robotics and AI, people start taking notice. Leveraging technology to take care of the fastest growing solid waste stream in the world, people like that. People like the circularity of that.”

Consultancy Wood Mackenzie estimates China can only produce 16 percent of copper it will need to overhaul energy mix by 2060.

The People’s Republic of China has pledged largely to shift away from coal and petroleum to cleaner, more renewable and more carbon-neutral energy sources by 2060. A consultancy has calculated it can do this—but it will require an abundant amount of imported copper. Other metals on China’s anticipated menu include aluminum and electric vehicle (EV) battery metals such as lithium and cobalt.

A seven-chapter research report Huang Miaoru, Gavin Thompson and Zhou Yanting of United Kingdom-based Wood Mackenzie includes a section forecasting how much copper and aluminum it will take to upgrade China’s EV output, bolster its EV charging network and engage in other wire- and cable-intensive changeovers.

“Electrification means energy by wire, and that requires metals, particularly copper and aluminum,” the authors write regarding “ensuring a secure and competitive supply of raw materials” for the massive energy changeover.

They continue, “China needs to expand its domestic ultra-high-voltage transmission networks. Copper is China’s Achilles’ heel. Essential for electricity transmission, wiring and wind turbines, the country’s domestic and overseas equity production of mined copper is just 16 percent of what it needs, leaving it net short to the tune of 7.5 million metric tons per year at current demand levels.”

It is unclear to what extent the report considered growing red metal scrap availability within China as a source of copper. Between now and 2060, more end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) and demolished buildings are likely to yield additional secondary copper there. China’s government recently reopened the door to copper scrap imports, in a move that has quickly ramped up the demand for and pricing of red metal scrap.

Newly mined copper is likely to play the largest role, but the trio write, “Despite a decade of Chinese investment in overseas copper assets, Western mining majors continue to dominate. One alternative might be to increase the use of aluminum, despite its less efficient electric conductivity.”

The nation’s government also has reopened the door for aluminum scrap imports, and the Mackenzie Wood researchers write, “China has abundant domestic bauxite resources, albeit of lower quality than Western alternatives, [but] reducing dependence on imported copper remains a major challenge.”

Ripple effects are likely to go beyond strained supplies and high prices in the global metal markets, the consultancy says. The authors write that “greater recovery and recycling will be mandated,” though in most economic systems, high metals pricing will incentivize scrap collection to reach a 95 percent target rate mentioned by Huang, Thompson and Zhou.

The trio also sees “big challenges further out for lithium, cobalt and nickel supply. International miners can target lithium and nickel, but cobalt – and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – is certainly a challenge. New production from Australia and Indonesia is expected, however.”

The full text of the report, “Tectonic shift: China’s world-changing push for energy independence,” can be found on this Wood Mackenzie web page.

Argus analyst says while the upward trajectory of prices could be over, they could remain lofty.

Steel pricing has surged upward in the past 10 months as first China and then the rest of the world began rebounding from the initial impacts of the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

A metals analyst with media and pricing service organization Argus, speaking at that company’s March 18 Ferrous Focus Day virtual event, said the peak could have been reached, but conditions are in place for the value of steel to stay lofty rather than plummeting anytime soon.

Tim Hard, a Singapore-based vice president of metals with Argus, referred to the impact of COVID-19 on national economies and steel sectors as a “FIFO [first in, first out] slump,” with China suffering from the virus first while also emerging from the pandemic before other nations.

He noted that while it was comparatively easier for electric arc furnace (EAF) mill operators to scale back output during the slump, many blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steel mills kept churning out steel and offering it to the global market.

By the summer of 2020, demand and pricing were on an upward trend for steel, iron ore and globally traded scrap grades, such as No. 1 heavy melting steel (HMS).

Looking forward, Hard said global steel output leader China “will continue to have a huge effect on the market.” The health of its domestic market as well as the percentage figure it puts on steel export rebates “will have an outsize effect on the global and regulatory [tariff] market,” he remarked.

Hard said he is reluctant to give narrow forecasts but commented that globally steel prices “are likely [as a trend, with dips] to reset at a slightly higher level than we have seen in the past.” He cited as factors pollution controls “and the pull toward higher quality raw materials” in China.

March 17, hot-rolled coil (HRC) steel was trading at $730 in some parts of the world. Using London Metal Exchange (LME) forward pricing activity as a guide, Hard said the “forward curve is fairly flat” for HRC, with the price based on this model dropping to $710 in May, $700 in June and $661 in December.

“That’s fairly shallow” as downward patterns go, said Hard, with the same LME forward pricing trend models still having HRC at $652 in April 2022. “We’ve been covering HRC since 2015, and it’s only in 2021 that the price has [settled consistently] above $650,” he added.

Calling the current steel landscape a bull market based on the past seven years’ worth of data, Hard pointed to bottlenecks in raw material supplies as “a tight market that could get tighter.”

Hard concluded that the high pricing and volatile conditions have “left deep scars” on buyers and sellers of steel and the raw materials to make it. He predicted “market conduct might change going forward” in the form of an increased willingness for traders to engage in hedging and indexed buying.

The “rewards are low to keep playing the market,” Hard remarked, adding that “for steel buyers, uncertainly is [now] more often an inconvenience rather than an advantage.” Pointing to what is routine in the nonferrous sector, he added, “It’s unusual for a metals sector to have 100 percent exposure” to price changes.

Fellow Argus Ferrous Focus Day presenter Prabodha Acharya, chief sustainability officer of India-based JSW Steel, said a path toward less emissions-intensive steelmaking in India will involve several techniques and technologies, ultimately including carbon capture.

Acharya said an abundance of scrap-fed EAF steelmaking may not be in India’s immediate future, even though the nation aspires to nearly triple its steel output to 300 million tons per year by 2030.

“The limiting factor here is the availability of scrap,” said Acharya. He said JSW and other steelmakers are likely to “jointly work toward increasing the use of” the EAF process. For its part, JSW has EAF capacity in Texas and Ohio in the United States.

While India lacks sufficient “quantity and quality of scrap,” Acharya said, the nation also seems destined to rely heavily on imports if it uses BOF technology to reach 300 million tons per year of capacity. According to Argus, India imported more than 48 million tons of coking coal in 2019 to produce the 111 million tons of steel it made that year.