Last Updated on November 23, 2021 by davidharnold
Sorting and screening machines are used in several industries to separate one thing from another. Sometimes it’s different sizes of the same thing and at other times they separate one type of substance from another.
A lot of the work that screening machines do has saved humans from tedious and sometimes dangerous hand sorting.
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Recycling
The kind of screening machines used in the recycling industry separate types of items, which are now usually all mixed together. Since glass, plastic and cardboard are all deposited in a large pile outside the recycling facility, it would take humans a long time to go through and sort the items but machines can do it easily.
When a load of mixed recyclables is deposited onto a screening machine, it shakes from side to side and there is also a type of vacuum above that sucks up the lighter items like paper. Plastic is lighter than glass or metal so that gets thrown off into its sorting area first. As the conveyor belt with the screens continues, plastic, glass and finally metal get thrown into their own areas.
This work would be hard, tedious and even dangerous for humans due to sharp edges and the possibility of toxic fumes.
Farming
On the farm, screening machines are a very efficient way to harvest, sort and even clean crops and animal feed. The screening machine goes over the row of a crop like wheat and harvests it. Then the screening action separates the actual grain from other materials that may be stuck to it like the seed coating and parts of the stem. This produces a very clean product. It is also much easier than doing it by hand.
Similarly, animal feed can be processed with a screening machine to ensure that nothing harmful is mixed in and the farm animals will only be eating what they’re meant to eat.
Seeds and nuts for human consumption can also be harvested with screening machines. They can then be shelled and graded by size before packaging.
Additionally, though not screening machines, egg grading machinery is a useful machine for a farm to have. It carefully and easily sizes eggs by sending them down different-sized chutes.
Aggregate
The word “aggregate” has many meanings but for these purposes, it means the materials used in construction and for coating snowy roads.
In the case of screening machinery for the aggregate industry, there are many different-sized openings in the screen to allow the small particles like sand to pass right through and trapping the gravel and larger chunks so they can be separated for their various uses.
This makes it simple for construction and other industries to have access to exactly what they want.
Color Sorters
If you’ve even wondered how bags of Skittles and M&Ms always have an even mix of colors, the bags are filled using color sorting machinery.
This type of machinery works by using sensors that shine white light on objects and then measure the color intensity that bounces back. Withought actually being able to see color, these sensors can sort according to light intensity. They are so accurate they can sort two pieces of candy per second.
They are often called RBG sensors, which very simply means that they can detect red, blue, green and all of the colors in between.
Not only can this type of machinery sort candy and other colored items, it can even sort diamonds. Since newly mined diamonds can have different shades other than the clear color that is the standard, sorting machines are useful in sorting diamonds according to their value.
The light generating sorters can also detect impurities and separate those diamonds out.
Screening and other types of sorting machines are much more efficient at separating one thing from another than humans could ever be. This efficiency spreads to the industries where the sorted materials are going and helps make them more efficient too.
