EQS-News

Aurubis invests in innovative system at the Lünen site for fully automated sample preparation

EQS-News: Aurubis AG / Key word(s): Miscellaneous Aurubis invests in innovative system at the Lünen site for fully automated sample preparation 27.05.2024 / 11:38 CET/CEST The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement. Aurubis invests in innovative system at the Lünen site for fully automated sample preparation

• Aurubis pointing the way to the future of sampling:
  highly automated, efficient and secure
• Lünen is the first site in the Group to use the new system,
  additional facilities at other sites to follow
• “Our suppliers’ trust is our most important currency in the global competition for recycling material,” says Inge Hofkens, COO Multimetal Recycling

Hamburg/Lünen, May 27, 2024 —Aurubis has successfully commissioned a new system that is setting new standards in the recycling industry at its Lünen plant. Sample preparation of feed materials, such as e-scrap, is now fully automated with the help of cutting-edge robotics. This innovative system now efficiently delivers reliable samples to the laboratory in just an hour for a sample preparation process that used to be carried out manually in up to 12 stages and could take five days. Aurubis invested a mid-single-digit-million-euro amount in the new system. The initial system concept was developed around three years ago as part of the Group-wide automation and digitalization strategy.

“The new system is absolutely state-of-the-art and, with up to 10,000 samples per year, the most powerful of its kind in our industry. It’s a flagship project: for both the Lünen site and the entire Aurubis Group,” Lünen Plant Manager Verena von Weiss said. “With a dedicated team, we moved ahead with the planning, construction and commissioning in less than a year. We gathered crucial experience to make the process even more secure, which all Aurubis sites will now profit from.”

Innovation with potential: the Lünen site and e-scrap are just the beginning, additional sites and input materials to follow soon

The system now online is the first of its kind in the Aurubis Group, and a model for other sites and materials. The company in investing in a system for the Hamburg site as well, and initial tests with materials specific to Hamburg have already been successfully conducted in Lünen. The Aurubis plants in Bulgaria (Pirdop), Belgium (Beerse), and the US (Augusta) are slated to follow. And e-scrap is only the beginning, as the system offer even more potential: Other valuable materials such as intermediates that accumulate in the smelter network can also be efficiently and securely sampled in the future. The system already enables the continuous mechanical sample preparation of materials like PCBs, shredded materials containing iron, and dried slimes.