HISTORY

After the company premises of STEINERT Latin America fell victim to a devastating fire, the new office and production building was officially opened in late summer 2023.

On September 22nd, 2020, STEINERT again demonstrates the way forward. STEINERT opens its Test and Development Center in Pulheim, just 4 miles as the crow flies from the company’s headquarters in Cologne.

The impressive figures speak for themselves; While STEINERT welcomed over 500 visitors a year to its old test centre, at around 38,000 sq ft, the new site has almost three times the space. The new test facility has 984 feet of conveyor belt and more than 35 highly-skilled staff that work on the 3 separate sorting lines for metal recycling, waste recycling and mining, delivering technical innovations and highly efficient test procedures. 

As part of their visits and material tests, customers can now benefit from the most recent developments to an even greater extent and see the entire range of applications for themselves: from magnetic separators to sensor-based sorting systems, such as X-ray transmission, X-ray fluorescence and near-infrared.
 

In 1889, Ferdinand Steinert founds “Ferdinand STEINERT Elektromagnetische Aufbereitungsanlagen” in Cologne. The new company initially works in small structures, but the market for the use of separation magnets is huge. While we have been aware of the phenomenon of magnetism since the eleventh century, it has so far been put to very little economic use.

The steel industry is one of the company's first customers. The design engineer Ferdinand Steinert develops magnets, which are used to recover iron from steel slag and steel waste, and from waste in foundries and iron works. It’s an effective procedure, which soon becomes more widespread as it becomes possible to separate coal from slag too. This further technical refinement is of great interest to the state railways, for example, which become a major client of STEINERT.

The majority takeover of RTT Systemtechnik GmbH in Zittau and the name change to RTT STEINERT GmbH in 2009 extends the product range yet further: near-infrared technology (NIR) is added to the portfolio. Typical patterns for materials based on molecular vibrations can be detected in the NIR wavelength range (1000 and 1700 nm) after excitation with light. The UniSort brand is developed and enters production. UniSort remains synonymous with superior sorting systems, predominantly in the field of waste recycling. In the same year, the STEINERT US headquarters move into a larger facility in Cincinnati.

STEINERT has owned Australia-based Sturton-Gill since 2004. It has traded under the name of STEINERT Australia Pty. Ltd. since 2009 and has its headquarters in Melbourne. STEINERT Australia is one of the leading manufacturers of magnets in the Asia-Pacific region and is a supplier to the expanding local recycling industry and the powerful mining industry. It now has its own Test Center for sensor-based sorting in Perth on the west coast of Australia, enabling customers to conduct their own tests with their own material. This enables them to test out their requirements, feasibility and ROI of any planned investments before committing to the purchase.

The company enters a new sector by developing and presenting the STEINERT HGF high-gradient magnetic filter. The matrix separator with permanent magnets enables incredibly fine magnetic elements to be removed from process liquids, such as degreasing baths in the steel industry, for the first time with an efficiency of more than 90%. Many steel companies have at least one such STEINERT HGF in operation. 

What’s more, the magnetic filter has also gained a firm foothold in biotechnology. In 2003, the STEINERT HGS high gradient magnetic separator is presented. This separates the finest magnetic components out of both salt and construction chemicals.

The focus of work in the recycling industry increasingly moves in the direction of recovering particularly fine non-ferrous metals. STEINERT further develops the non-ferrous metal separator in response to this demand. Since the alternating pole frequency is of particular importance for the induction of eddy currents in small particle sizes, a so-called fine pole system is used for this type. This development should also prove to be a success. STEINERT is still a pioneer in this field. 

The Metalloxyd parent company has been developing an innovative product since way back towards the end of the 1950s: the anodised ANOFOL^® strip. From 1969 onwards, it was used as the conductor material for lifting and self-cleaning overhead suspension magnets. While American competitors use conventional copper windings in coils, STEINERT is the first to use anodised aluminium strips. The compact coil, which can thereby be produced, is distinguished mainly by its excellent fill factor and extremely good heat dissipation. This innovation propels STEINERT further to the fore and is also successfully deployed in other industries. While the market share of lifting magnets declines due to changes in the economic environment, the requirements of separation technology continue to grow. 

In 1960, STEINERT presents the first overhead suspension magnet. This magnet recovers iron from shredder material, municipal solid waste, demolition waste, waste and steelwork slag. In mining, they are mainly used to protect crushers, mills and other mining processing equipment from wear and destruction by removing harmful ferrous parts, such as bolts, nuts and rock bolts from coal, coke, ore and other minerals and ores. The self-cleaning overhead suspension magnet is arranged above a feeding conveyor belt and extracts the ferromagnetic materials from the supply flow against the force of gravity. Several thousand of these machines are put into use around the globe over the next few years.

At the start of the new century, the economic conditions are ideal for the new company. The order books are full and customers are flooding in from mining, shipping and the steel industry. Separator magnets no longer have to work with chunky hammers or iron lugs alone, the objects to be separated are getting smaller, and the technology involved is becoming ever more complex. Increasingly, the magnets working in coal pits have to reliably separate smaller waste products, like thin wires or bent drill rods, out of bulk material. At the same time, the market for lifting magnets is growing.