System and process for the recovery of titanium, titanium alloy, zirconium and zirconium alloy scrap

A process for recovering titanium, titanium alloys, zirconium and zirconium alloys from a mixture of chips, the mixture of chips including titanium chips, titanium alloy chips, zirconium chips, zirconium alloy chips, ferromagnetic chips, electrically conductive non-ferromagnetic chips or mixtures thereof, the process comprising;

• drying the mixture of chips;
• demagnetizing the mixture of chips so as to eject ferromagnetic chips from the mixture of chips;
• decontaminating the dried mixture of chips after the step of demagnetizing by passing the dried mixture of chips in an Eddy current separator so as to eject electrically conductive non-ferromagnetic chips from the dried mixture of chips;
• and
• demagnetizing the decontaminated dried mixture of chips so as to eject ferromagnetic chips from the decontaminated dried mixture of chips.