A reclaimer is a large industrial machine designed to recover bulk materials like coal, iron ore, and grain from stockpiles. It’s a core piece of equipment in mining, power generation, and port operations, where massive quantities of raw materials need to be stored temporarily and then fed back into a processing or transport system. The term “reclaimer” also appears in other fields, from water treatment to refrigerant recovery, where it broadly refers to any system or process that restores a used resource to a usable state.
Industrial Reclaimers: The Core Meaning
In bulk material handling, a reclaimer sits alongside a stockpile and systematically removes material so it can be loaded onto conveyors and moved to the next stage of processing or shipping. These machines are rated by volume capacity, measured in cubic meters per hour, which is then converted to tonnes per hour based on the density of the material being handled. A single reclaimer at a coal-fired power plant or iron ore port can move thousands of tonnes per hour.
Reclaimers often work in tandem with stackers, which are machines that build the stockpile in the first place. Some facilities use combined stacker-reclaimers that can do both jobs. The stockpile acts as a buffer: ships or trains deliver material in large batches, the stacker builds the pile, and the reclaimer draws from it at whatever rate downstream operations require.
Types of Industrial Reclaimers
The two main ways reclaimers remove material from a stockpile are bucket wheels and scrapers. A bucket wheel reclaimer uses a large rotating wheel fitted with scoops (buckets) that dig into the face of the stockpile. As the wheel turns, the buckets fill with material, dump it onto a conveyor belt running along the machine’s boom, and the conveyor carries it away. Scraper reclaimers use blades or chains to drag material off the pile instead.
The structure that supports these mechanisms comes in several forms. Portal reclaimers straddle a stockpile on legs, moving along rails on either side. Bridge reclaimers span the width of a storage area on an overhead structure. Both portal and bridge types can use either bucket wheels or scrapers depending on the material and the facility’s needs.
How a Bucket Wheel Reclaimer Moves
A bucket wheel reclaimer combines several motions to work through an entire stockpile. The boom can pitch up and down (called luffing) to reach different heights of the pile. The entire upper structure rotates (slewing) to sweep across the pile’s face. And the whole machine travels along rails running parallel to the stockpile. By coordinating these three movements, the reclaimer shaves material from the stockpile in even layers. The rotation speed adjusts automatically so the reclaiming rate stays consistent regardless of the boom’s angle. These machines can operate in manual, local, or semi-automatic modes.
Water Reclamation
Outside of heavy industry, “reclaimer” and “reclamation” most commonly refer to treating wastewater so it can be used again. Water reclamation, water recycling, and water reuse all describe essentially the same concept: taking water that has been contaminated through human use or natural processes and restoring it to a quality appropriate for its next purpose.
The treatment process moves through several stages. Pretreatment and primary treatment remove solids and large particles. Secondary treatment uses biological processes to break down dissolved organic matter. Tertiary or advanced treatment can push water purity to virtually any level desired, though costs rise with each additional stage. The level of treatment depends entirely on how the water will be used. Irrigating a highway median requires far less processing than producing drinking water.
Reclaimed water serves a wide range of purposes: agricultural and landscape irrigation, industrial cooling, groundwater recharge, toilet flushing, fire protection, recreational lakes, and even direct potable reuse as drinking water. In the United States, the EPA does not mandate or restrict specific types of water reuse. Instead, individual states set their own treatment standards based on the water source and its intended end use. A system reusing rainwater for irrigation will face much less stringent requirements than one reprocessing municipal sewage into tap water.
Refrigerant Reclamation
In HVAC and refrigeration, a reclaimer is a facility or process that restores used refrigerant to like-new purity. This matters because EPA regulations under the Clean Air Act prohibit selling used refrigerant to a new owner unless it has been reclaimed by an EPA-certified reclaimer. The rule applies to both ozone-depleting refrigerants and their newer substitutes like HFCs.
Reclaimed refrigerant must meet purity standards set by the Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI Standard 700), and that purity has to be verified through specific laboratory testing. This ensures that refrigerant circulating through commercial and residential cooling systems performs correctly and doesn’t introduce contaminants that could damage equipment or reduce efficiency.
Land Reclamation
The term also applies to restoring land that has been disturbed by mining, construction, or other industrial activity. In surface mining, reclamation typically involves regrading the terrain, replacing topsoil, and reestablishing vegetation. The federal Surface Mine Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 set standards for how mine operators must restore land after extraction is complete.
Effective land reclamation depends heavily on soil quality. The rooting medium needs to be at least four feet deep and free of heavy compaction, or the site will struggle with drought and nutrient problems. Soil pH matters too: levels above 7 or below 5 create conditions where plants can’t absorb nutrients properly. One of the most effective techniques is moving soil directly from areas about to be mined onto areas being reclaimed, preserving living seeds and root systems that can jumpstart natural forest succession. Storing soil before respreading causes seeds and roots to lose viability, so direct transfer works best.
Research from the U.S. Forest Service found that loosely dumped soil allowed nearly ten times more tree seedlings to establish naturally (475 stems per acre) compared to conventionally graded, compacted soil (49 stems per acre). Avoiding aggressive grass cover also helps, since dense ground cover blocks sunlight and prevents tree seeds carried in by wind and wildlife from taking root.
Solvent Reclamation
In chemical manufacturing and semiconductor production, solvent reclaimers use distillation to purify and recover waste solvents rather than disposing of them. The used solvent is heated to its boiling point, and the resulting vapor is collected and condensed back into a clean liquid, leaving contaminants behind. This process reduces both the cost of purchasing fresh solvents and the environmental impact of disposal. Pairing solvent reclamation with renewable energy sources can cut carbon emissions from waste disposal by roughly 89% compared to simply discarding used solvents.