The market believes that a white clay tile is better than a red one, which may contain greater than 1% ferrous materials. This perception is based only on colour and not on technical properties, however as this is market driven the company has to achieve the colour specification to be able to compete effectively within the market place. Spanish clays are red and therefore to achieve a whiter ceramic the company imports white clays from other countries, increasing the cost of materials and therefore either increasing their prices, or reducing their profits.

The goal was to remove as much of the ferrous compounds as possible from the mineralogical structure to reduce the current ferrous content from 3% to below 1.5%. To prove efficiency and cost viability of the system, Master Magnets supplied their small demonstration unit to enable the company to test the effectiveness of the filter.

The filter unit consists of a canister containing a stainless steel matrix, which is energised using a variable intensity electro-magnetic coil around the outside. The matrix amplifies the magnetic field to produce points of very high magnetic intensity and gradient. The slurry is fed into the bottom of the unit and passes up through the energised matrix, where contaminates are captured by the matrix and the cleaned product passes out of the top of the separator to the next stage.