Copper Wire Recycling

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hey guys my name is jason with mount baker  mining and metals and on today's video   we're going to be running a waste stream from  a big copper chopping processor from sweden   through our turnkey pcb system the hammer mill  and the shaker table and we're going to see how   much additional copper we can recover so  this customer sent four different samples   and this is the first one i unboxed and it looks  like it's just chopped up insulation from copper   wire but here's some analysis they had done on  this stuff and they're interested in the copper   here and that's 11 kilograms per ton so it's 1.1  percent copper so i'm going to go through i'll   show you how i process all these samples first  thing is we got to get a weight on this stuff so   we can figure out the recovery percentage we got  and then we'll run it through our shaker table   and weigh the copper at the end here's our  sample this is the number one sample i'm going   to try and do everything in kilograms here this  weighs nine kilograms as it is but the bucket i   weighed before weighs exactly one kilogram so  we have eight kilograms worth of material here   so for these samples that are already chopped up  i can just run them directly on the shaker table   and for eight kilograms at 1.1 copper we're  looking at about 88 grams or so of recovery   is what we're shooting for so i'm going to get the  shaker table wipe down cleaned off we're going to   run the sample on the shaker table all the copper  is going to come across here and down into the   number one and number two port over here so i'll  get this thing fired up and we'll see how it goes   all right here's our number one  sample i've mixed it with water   and i'm going to take just a little bit of soap  put some soap in there and then i'm going to mix   it around with a paint stirrer on a drill and  get all mixed up and try and break any of that   oil that's on that i know it has a lot of oil and  then over here i got the shaker table set up and   for those of you who haven't seen this before  this is the goofiest looking thing in the world   but it works really really well so what  i found is running this copper chop stuff   the copper either is hydrophobic and  wants to float because it's so fine   or has oil on it and this super super light  plastic sheet breaks the surface tension of   the water and makes the copper sink down into the  grooves and then it can travel over the number one   a lot of you have left comments about putting  a bunch of surfactant in the water over there   i've tried that it works for a little while  and then you just have to keep adding more and   more and more and more and it it can get really  expensive if you're running on a production scale   this stuff even though it looks crazy goofy it's  pretty much free no maintenance and it just it   works really well it drops all the copper  down in the grooves and works its way over   here into the number one i've got the shaker table  brushed off as best i can i've got number one and   number two concentrates this is the number three  midlings which i don't expect hardly any copper   and then all the light plastic and insulation  is going to go down into number four all the   water in this system is recirculated so there's  a little pump over there and it just pumps onto   the shaker table drains down into the the little  settling pond and just recirculates all the water i've done the same thing with ore  when it comes in really super dry   and it's powdered because you just mix it with  water and this paint stirrer works really well   for mixing it up and turning it into a slurry   because feeding dry material onto the shaker table  does not work very well it all just wants to float   float off the table and you're not getting any  separation you really need to get it wetted   and get it all nice and wet so it goes  and sinks down onto the chafing table okay there we go let's start feeding this stuff okay i'll show you here i i kind of screwed up i  usually have this plastic piece on the over there   and the white plastic piece over here so i'm going  to switch those well take a look here i'm not real   happy with the way this plastic's working right  now i mean it works good but anywhere there's   a little wrinkle or something seems like the  insulation gets caught up underneath so i might   run to the hardware store and get a sheet that's  six feet wide and you know 10 feet long and cover   the whole table in a single sheet because this  one's been kind of stretched and pinched and stuff   but the insulation is working underneath really  nice you can see where it's underneath the   the plastic and then here's all the copper coming  across and 88 grams is not very much so i think we   we did pretty good here but let me get let me get  this cleaned off i'll get all the copper down into   the number one and number two there there isn't  hardly anything in number three to speak of and   a lot of the insulation insulation's going down  there you can see here's a quick shot this is the   the concentrates and you can see that line of  copper just running right up under the water bar   so it's working pretty darn good i'm taking  the number two and re-run it on the shaker   table here to clean it up that early run kind  of got a bunch of insulation stuff down in it   so i'm just kind of trying to get it cleaned  up and help it along here you can just dribble   it up here right under the water bar and all  that insulation kind of works its way down and then the copper comes clean all right i got a bucket here it's zeroed  on the scale here's our number one which   is you know pretty much pure copper well  the number one has 85 grams of copper in it   so that's pretty good we pretty much hit our  1.1 percent right there and the number two has 45 grams of mostly copper i'd say that's  90 percent at least the insulation there's   some in there you can see it but it doesn't  weigh very much so i call that 40 40 grams   of copper so what's at 85 and 40 is 125 grams well  according to my math on that one we got 1.56 1.6  

recovery of copper uh so we're actually better  than the analysis that they had done on i'm   assuming a small a small sample um so that's  that's pretty encouraging and and you can you can   slide that scale say oh there's 10 more crap  in there or oh there's you know we lost some   on the table or whatever you want to say but we  recovered better than the analysis so i'm pretty   happy with that well i got a painters tarp in the  hardware store this is a half mil sheet so it's   the lightest thinnest plastic that i could find  and it just floats right on the top of the water   you can see it's all one piece i've kind  of tried to get it as smooth as i can   um so we'll we'll give it a shot here and you  know this is the fun part for me this is this   is improvement in real time you're seeing what i'm  trying trying to improve the system a little bit   if it doesn't work we all learn from it if  it works then we all have the knowledge and   we can all improve our systems wherever  we we can with this kind of technology so   hopefully this helps somebody out there and  hopefully it works let's see how it goes   well here's the number two sample this is what  we're going to run next and this is just loaded   with copper and it looks like aluminum  flakes they're all really fine   but coming over here and looking at the the  sample form here i think that's 27 percent copper   and then aluminum up here is 16 aluminum so  there's a significant amount of metal in here   we will see how the shaker table handles  it all right we got number two on there   it weighs right about nine and a half so we'll  say eight and a half kilograms of material and   there you go see i poured water in there and look  at all this stuff floating i mean it's just so   hydrophobic we got to get it under that sheet  and sink it and mix it with a paint stirrer   i'm going to try and do two things at once here  try and run the shaker table and film at the   same time but you can see in the distributor  trough there's a bunch of stuff that floats   even with all the soap i put in there  but as soon as it gets down under the under the sheet it just all drops out the copper  is coming across the aluminum is coming down   into the number three and then all this fine  insulation is going down into the number four but that caught look at it just  coming out the first groove   bam shooting right down into  the number one that's cool   let me get a little more of this bucket run  i just started that's the first couple scoops but this stuff is super fine super small particles   i don't know if this is like the the dust  their air classifying system sucked up or what   but i think they're having a real  hard time classifying out the copper   and there's you know there's loads of it like i  said 27 or something so what's that we should get   uh two kilograms four pounds  of copper out of this stuff man it's running nice on the table big bands of copper let's come  down here and take a look it   hasn't quite got all the way down here  yet but i think what's going to happen   is the copper is running all down into the number  one the aluminum once it gets out of these long   grooves can't come across the table so it comes  down right now it's coming into the number two i don't know keep it down it's  coming down into the number two here but i think you're seeing  the copper come down here   and as soon as there's more copper then these  grooves can handle it's gonna come down here and   it's gonna start pushing copper into the number  two you can kind of see it already it's starting   to turn a little copper colored and that'll  push the aluminum down into the number three i don't know if i can grab it but see there that's pretty much all aluminum so it's working pretty nice let me keep  feeding it so i can stay consistent   we'll take a look at what we got so here's  something i just saw while i was running around   the sheet knocks it down but as soon as it  gets into the air again it starts to float   and so it was i came down here and i looked and  my number one concentrating cup here was about   let's see what am i trying to say the water level  was below the pipe and so the copper would fall   down and float and you can see all this little  fine copper that's floated out of the number   one but now that i have the water level and that  pipe goes down and it submerges underneath the   the bucket i don't know am i making any  sense i think so now the copper even   though it's floating it's it's captured and  as soon as it goes under the water then it's   caught into the number one i'll move that  brick over and get the number two as well   see what happens when i look under  this sheet oh yeah i like copper it's just it's just thick there's some aluminum getting up there  surprisingly a little band of aluminum right   here there must be some harmonic or something like  a standing wave where the aluminum can hang out   but tons of big band of aluminum pretty much  all going down into the number three here   copper going down to the number one at  this point the number two is mostly copper that's working pretty good here's our number three there's a little  bit floating off the number three bucket   not a ton there's definitely  some metal floating on top of our   settling pond again not a ton but you  can see it here's the band of copper we   finished got solid copper from the water bar  all the way across to the ramp and the table   the aluminum is coming down here into the  number three pretty good separation there we're getting a pile of  copper here looks pretty clean i don't really know how clean it needs to be but it's kind of cool having a target i mean  most people send the samples and they say   well recover as much copper as you can get  and these guys have done their analysis and   they know how much copper's in there and we're  trying to match that bar so that's kind of cool   i'm excited to see how much weight we  have in the number one and number two here   and then i'll weigh the number three  as well since that's mostly metal   and i found that you get the plastic right  to the edge if you hang it way over down here   stuff piles up on the on the corner because  that plastic pulls down and makes pinches   right there so you got to have it just kind  of right at the edge all the way across   and then here you can see in the bubbles a  bunch of coppers coming up in the bubbles   fine copper powder so like i say  even even though it's it's under   the surface of the water as soon as it hits  a surface the copper starts floating again   so that's kind of interesting  same with the aluminum here float well work our way backwards  this is the number three and it is mostly aluminum there's a  little copper flake every once in a while   but there's a significant amount of aluminum in  there so that's where most of the aluminum went   here's the number two and probably by weight there's a  significant amount of copper in there   it looks like it's about half and half but  i think that means that there's about 75   percent by weight copper more or less so  there's that now go look at the number one   and here is the number one stuff this is you  know pretty much pure copper some tinned wires   in there you might see a little bit of  gray but i don't see hardly any aluminum it's pretty much pure copper okay so we're looking for about two kilograms  of copper i think if i remember right about 25   the thing weighs the tub weighs 30 grams wow so 2.9 kilograms that's 2 900 grams in the number one the number two weighs 630 grams and so call  that 500 grams of copper let's call this one 2 800 grams of copper so  that's 3.3 kilograms of copper well my math on   that one says we're about 38 39 copper i did 3.3  divided by 8.5 and ended up with about 39 percent  

so again quite a bit more than what the analysis  report had to say uh and and there again you   can you can adjust that 10 percent lower  because you know maybe it's still a little   wet or maybe there's a little more aluminum in  there than i thought or maybe there's some tin   um but i mean we're we're 50 on on both the  samples we've run so far 50 percent greater   than the analysis so even if we're 25 percent  greater there's a significant amount more copper   in there than what the analysis is talking about  that we're recovering on the shaker table so   that's all good news and again this one  that we just weighed uh 30 seconds ago was   the box number two that real fine stuff so now  we'll keep going and run the next two samples   here's number five and this is a lot of really  fluffy fluffy stuff like paper and string   and real light insulation so it'll be interesting  to see how this stuff runs but here's the analysis   they got about 10 percent copper in this one  100 000 milligrams per metric ton i think is   how i'm reading that but anyway 10 copper so  let's see if we can keep going with our our uh   our results and get maybe 15 copper out of it for  him and nine and a half kilograms in number five   so his number five is kind of interesting  there's a lot more insulation and fluff   and it's just migrating its  way down into the number four   there's a little bit of aluminum  flake some larger flakes coming across   but they're all going down into the number  two you can see them cascading down here   and here and then the copper's coming across  the large grooves over under the water bar so this was kind of interesting we on the  first two we had a lot more insulation   coming down to number three and this stuff is  light enough it's going into the number four   here's the number one from sample five pretty  much pure copper mostly fine wire in this stuff   some little flakes this thing weighs 24  grams so we recover right about 300 grams   of copper there this is the number two some of  those big aluminum flakes made it down in there   but that's mostly copper by weight i'd say 90  this one weighs 36 grams and then take another   i don't know 10 15 percent off so call it about  200 grams of copper there so interestingly enough   on this number five sample we ended up with about  500 grams of copper when the report said that we   were looking for about uh 950 at 10 by weight  so we came in a little light on number five here   all right so now for the next sample number  four i'm gonna run it down through the hammer   mill because it's got some chunks of stuff  in it i wanna break it up get it all fluid   and so it can all separate out the shaker table  and i'm gonna run it down through this hammer   mill down the gooseneck into this chamber where  there's a bunch of hammers that go around there   break it all up and there's a screen that runs  the bottom half of the hammer mill it's got a   about a point eight millimeter slot in it  and as that stuff gets small enough it'll   go through the hammer mill and down this  trough onto the shaker table i run it wet   so there's water pumped up into the hammer mill to  keep the dust down keep everything fluid so a nice   slurry goes down onto the shaker table i'm going  to keep the plastic on it just to see how it works   and we'll get running this number four sample and  here's number four this looks like i don't know   mud or sludge or something that  has dried out obviously and it's   kind of little crumbles but you can break  them up and see it's that real fine stuff   um so we'll be interested to see what this comes  out with but here on this one supposedly it's 47   copper which is a ton that's a  bunch a bunch of bunch of copper   so we'll run it through the hammer mill and see  what we can recover on the table with the hammer   mill it's going to be a little bit tricky to get  a real accurate recovery rate because i can't   guarantee that all the copper comes out of that  chamber you know there's little corners and stuff   so we're gonna have to kind of estimate what we  got when it runs down on the shaker table over   into the number one and number two it weighs  10 kilograms so that's ends up being nine well we're finishing off number four here and  something interesting happened when i turned   the hammer mill on the little bit of soap i used  to mix up with the buckets started getting pumped   up into the hammer mill and it  started frothing like crazy and big   blobs of soap suds and stuff started  forming underneath our our plastic sheet   i don't think it hurt anything i  mean here's one kind of left over   it just it's they're just bubble soap bubbles but  it was kind of a shock so maybe that's a reason   not to use i mean i think jet dry is a real  common one it doesn't suds up and soap up   but i learned that we've definitely got some  copper coming still and i can tell you right now   there's no way that stuff is 47 copper or at  least the stuff i recovered uh just because it   it doesn't weigh enough it's not heavy enough  that bucket was i don't know two-thirds full or   something and you can see the amount of copper we  got here there might be a kilogram you might have   15 but there's you know it just didn't it  didn't weigh enough it didn't weigh enough   to be half copper for that volume of stuff  and here's our number one and number two   from the number four sample um okay so we've got 1500 take off 26 or whatever  for the jug we've got 1500 grams   of pretty much pure copper and then this i don't  know that's probably about half copper by weight   36 for the thing two so probably about 200 200  grams of copper here and like i showed you on   the first sample you can take this and upgrade it  on the shaker table again to get pure copper or   or a much higher percentage but estimating we got  1700 grams of copper off the number four sample   and according to my math 1700 grams divided by  9000 grams is right around 19 percent copper so   uh yeah i i something something doesn't feel  right on that sample uh just because that that   bucket was so full and and didn't weigh very  much the density wasn't there so i'm thinking   there might be some mix up with the analysis  on that one but we still recovered about 20   copper so that's uh that's pretty good there's  still quite a bit of value in there well here's   sample number three and this is the the junk  of the junk here you got you know big chunks of   i don't know what that is it feels  like lead almost rocks wire harnesses and there's there's really not very much here   i have the wrong screen in the  hammer mill to run this stuff   what you really want to do is you want to take  this stuff and run it through a pretty big screen   break it all up and then run it finer but  uh i'll try running this stuff through like   i said there's not very much weight and we'll  see if we can recover some copper out of this   stuff there's no analysis paper with this one so  we're just going to figure out how much we get   but i mean yeah it just looks like dirt and  rocks and plastic and glass and and junk so   we'll run it see what we get well what i've done  is i've screened this through a half inch screen   because that that stuff can easily go through  the hammer mill uh some of this bigger stuff   i'm gonna pick out you know these bigger chunks of  whatever that and there's nothing wrong with that   but it just takes forever to grind up in  the hammer mill to go through a small slot   slotted screen what you'd really want to do with  this stuff is you might want to screen it first i   don't know chunks of glass but screen it first and  you want to run the overs through one of our scrap   systems with like a half inch screen or three  quarter inch screen break all this up and then   run it under a magnet one of our mag belts up  through the conveyor but like there's a there's a   ball bearing or something it's steel it's heavy  that that just sits in the hammer mill forever   so you want to get as much of this big stuff  out crushed up finer before you run it through   uh a small screen and onto a shaker table  so this stuff's going through the hammer   mill this is the stuff i picked out just the  big pieces big pieces of plastic some of the   bigger rocks the hammer mill can handle them but  you know why that ball bearing so i picked that   stuff out i actually probably while the hammer is  running i'll strip this stuff with a trim knife   get the copper out of it and then we'll add  that to the pile let's get this weighed and   run through the hammer mill well we're at just  under five so call it what three and a half uh so okay here's the number one and then i  actually there's so little of the number two   i clean it up in the table and put it in  here so we've got number one and number two   clean copper take off i don't know round figures  43 for the tub you got 850 grams of copper   out of the number three that that auto shred  residue and then i don't know i'm i was going to   add this in this is the stuff i hand stripped from  the bigger pieces because i mean by rights that   that goes in there with that copper so when you  put it all together you've got about a kilogram   so what's that from three and  a half kilos that's uh a third   thirty percent thirty percent copper by weight  for sample number three that's pretty good   all right guys we ran all five of  those samples i hope you guys enjoyed   the running of the samples as well as the  results some pretty interesting results there   hope the customer is going to be happy with  the recovery we got with the shaker table   and hammer mill so if you guys are interested  in any of the equipment you saw today either   the hammer mill or the shaker table processing  copper chops or copper chop waste let me know   email phone number and website should be  there so reach out if you have any questions   thanks for watching and we'll  see you guys in the next video

2022-08-22

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