During the production process, there are numerous stages that can lead to the mixing of metal impurities with materials. These stages include the presence of metal impurities in raw materials, metal components from maintenance or loading areas, metal wear from production machinery, and even metal parts worn by operators.
New Materials with No Metal Impurities:
The claim of having materials completely free of metal impurities is problematic. Achieving 100% metal-free materials is unrealistic and not entirely safe. Even if materials with zero metal impurities were available, it would still be challenging to entirely eliminate the possibility of metal impurities entering the finished product during subsequent processing.
Recycled Materials:
Recycled materials often contain significant amounts of metal debris, especially non-ferrous metals such as stainless steel, copper, aluminum, tin, and others. Given the rising costs of raw materials, the cost advantage of using recycled materials is quite attractive to many companies. This is also why an increasing number of companies are interested in pre-processing recycled materials, taking into consideration the adverse effects of these metal impurities during the recycling process.
Wear, Accidents, or Negligence:
Concerning the storage and supply of materials, accidents or negligence can lead to metal-containing items inadvertently mixing with raw materials. Other sources include metal generated from the wear and tear of moving parts. Such incidents can happen unpredictably.
Metal impurities typically found in plastics can result in the following adverse effects:
Metal impurities disrupt normal production operations, damage machinery, affect product quality, lead to customer complaints, harm the company’s market reputation, and impact the recycling market for products. This can result in production stoppages, reduced production efficiency, increased incidents during night shifts, and a shortened lifespan for machine components.
Using a metal separator not only removes ferrous metals (down to sizes as small as 0.3 mm) but also eliminates other metal impurities like stainless steel, copper, aluminum, and more.
Advantages of a Metal Separator:
While adding a Plastic metal separator may require budget adjustments and modifications to the feeding system, it undoubtedly enhances product quality, automation levels, and waste management. In many cases, the cost of preventing a single breakdown may exceed the investment in a metal separator. The benefits include reducing downtime, improving production efficiency, lowering maintenance and repair costs, extending the lifespan of production equipment, and increasing customer satisfaction.
