Guide To The Different Copper Scrap Grades

Copper metal is malleable and a good electricity conductor. Generally, manufacturers use copper in electric wires, home appliances, commercial piping, and car wiring. Due to these numerous uses, copper is in high demand. However, mining copper is an expensive and tedious process, thus the need to recycle copper. Therefore, if you have some copper scraps for sale, you need to first grade your copper. That's because buyers use copper for different purposes such as melting, purification, or reconstruction. Each copper grade fetches a special price, with the top quality fetching higher prices than lower grades. Here's a guide to the various copper scrap grades.

Bare Bright Copper

This grade of metal contains 99.9% copper and is the most valuable of all grades. The copper grade is usually of good quality without signs of tarnishing and oxidation. Additionally, the copper is generally free from insulation material, rubber, coating, and other non-copper bindings. The metal should have a 16-gauge thickness. Manufacturers use this copper scrap grade to manufacture power cables that handle high voltage electricity.

#1 Copper

This copper scrap grade comes as tubes or pipes, and the wires have a 16-gauge thickness, and you can find it in plumbing pipes. This copper shouldn't have any attachments or contaminants. When supplying the copper, you should remove oils, tar, paint, and other contaminants. Usually, experts use the copper wires in this grade to supply electricity for industrial purposes.

#2 Copper

This copper grade contains 96% of copper or more and requires more time for processing. The scrap comes in the form of contaminated bare bright copper but it is also free from binding. For instance, recyclers receive the metal as plumbing wiring with grease, solder, or paint. Additionally, piping that may previously have been in use with chemicals also falls in this category.

#3 Copper or Light Copper

Light copper usually contains at least 92% of copper and comes as a thin sheet. An example is the chimney flashing that prevents seepage of water between the roof and chimney. Other light copper grades are gutter systems, old fire-extinguishing tanks, and kettles. This copper scrap grade should be free from excess oils and tar.

The primary copper scrap grades are bare bright copper, #1 copper, #2 copper, and #3 copper. You should understand these grades if you want to separate your metal scraps according to the correct recycling value and get good money from your copper scraps. Contact a company that works with copper scraps for more information.