Magnetic Separation

Designed and Engineered for the Most Effective Magnetic Separation

MPI helps you achieve your food safety plan and reduce the risk of a product recall. We provide best practice knowhow and equipment to detect and remove metal contaminants. MPI’s Magnetic separators provide the greatest separation of metal contaminants. These include fine ferrous particles to large pieces of tramp iron. They are used in a variety of processing products including powders, granular, and liquid materials. MPI designs a full range of both manual and self-cleaning magnetic separation equipment. All meet today’s high standards of product quality.

How to Choose A Magnetic Separator

Bulk solids manufacturing operations use magnetic separators. They capture and retain ferrous metal contaminants from the material during processing. This ensures product quality, protects consumers, and prevents damage to downstream equipment. The ferrous metal contains iron, making it magnetic. and may enter the material stream in many ways at any stage during the manufacturing process.

A magnetic separator uses magnets to capture and retain ferrous contaminants from the flowing material stream during processing. The magnets attract and hold contaminants passing over or near the separator. The captured contaminants then accumulate on the separator. The contaminants are then cleaned off either manually or automatically.

Many factors influence magnetic separator selection. These include:

• The size of the contaminants you are trying to capture
• Your material’s characteristics such as bulk density and abrasiveness
• The specifics of your process such as the material flow rate and temperature

The experts at MPI will help you sort through these factors and select the best separator for your application. To ensure the best results, always work with MPI. We have experience and expertise in a wide range of bulk solids handling applications.

There are many ways to configure a magnetic separator. Common configurations include tube, grate or drawer separators; plate separators; pulley separators; and drum separators.

• A tube, grate or drawer separator uses one or more magnetic tubes placed in the material stream. Your product comes into direct contact with this type of separator. The magnetic field’s strength concentrates at the magnet surface. This captures and holds the contaminants.  Click on these links for more information: Tube Magnets, Grate Magnets, Drawer Magnets, Liquid Finger Trap Magnet, Pneumatic Line Magnet, Inline Pneumatic Drawer Magnet
• A plate separator is a magnetic plate mounted inside a chute. The magnetic field’s strength is concentrated away from the magnet surface. As material slides down the chute, the magnetic field reaches out into the flowing material. This attracts ferrous contaminants to the magnet and collects them on the plate. Click on these links for more information: Plate Magnets, Chute Magnets, Inline Pneumatic Plate Magnet, Liquid Trap Magnet Plate Design
• A pulley separator is a magnetic roll used as the head pulley for a belt conveyor. The pulley attracts ferrous contaminants. They are separated from the material during belt discharge. Clean material moves forward off the belt to the downstream process. Tramp metal is drawn around the pulley and discharged beneath the conveyor. Click on these links for more information: Pulley Separators and Separation Rolls, Magnetic Belt Feeder
• A drum separator is a rotating magnetic drum. It is placed in the path of a falling material stream. Your product pass over the rotating drum. Any ferrous contaminants are captured on the drum surface. They are then rotated out of the flow stream and discharged into a collection container. Click on this link for more information: Drum Separators

Free-flowing materials will flow well through a grate or drawer style magnetic separator. But cohesive materials may bridge across the openings between the magnets. This can stop the flow and cause production delays.

With materials that have a high bulk density, or processes that have a high flow rate, the product can wash-off already captured contaminants. This will reintroduce the contaminants to the product stream. For this reason, magnetic strength is critical.

If the magnet’s protective cover is too thin, abrasive materials can wear through the magnets’ protective steel cover. Abrasive applications need a thicker steel layer to avoid frequent magnet replacement.