How To Distinguish Ferrous Metals From Non-Ferrous When Sorting?

A Scrap Metal Recycling Provider Offers Useful Advice

Having unwanted scrap delivered to a scrap metal recycling provider can help you in earning a bit of money. It allows you to turn some of your unwanted waste into useful finance. Yet, before you can turn in your waste, you need to perform certain preparation steps such as sorting. This can be confusing at times as identifying the type, especially when dirty can be hard. There are several measures which can help you in recognizing which are ferrous and non-ferrous.

Ferrous can attach to magnets

How to distinguish ferrous metals from non-ferrous when sorting? One of the methods you can use to determine whether the piece is for copper or steel recycling is to use a magnet. Iron and steel have a distinctive property referred to as ferromagnetism. This allows them to be drawn by and attach to a magnet with the pull being very strong. This can be quite helpful when it comes to identifying the piece of scrap and preparing it. To determine if a certain material is iron or steel, use a horseshoe or fridge magnet. Place the tool close to the piece in question and observe its behavior. If it sticks immediately or soon after placing the magnet and is a bit hard to remove the piece has a high content of ferrous nature.

Non-ferrous are easier to bend

Another characteristic which you can use when it comes to steel or copper scrap is checking its strength and malleability. Non-ferrous types are easier to bend and shape as they lack tensile strength. To determine if the piece is copper, brass or other perform the following test. Try to bend a thick sheet or section of the material. If you do not need a lot of force it is likely that you have a non-ferrous material. You can also place a heavy object and see if the material will endure its weight. You can also use a magnet as well.

How to distinguish ferrous metals from non-ferrous when sorting? There are several steps which can help you when checking the properties of the materials. If you would like to learn about them, contact a professional scrap metal recycling provider such as Jackson Metal Recycling (Tulsa) in Tulsa, OK.

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