The Magnus effect is the lift force on a body moving through a fluid as a result of the rotation of that body. In theory, the Magnus effect can be used to recover small non-ferrous metal particles from dry bulk streams. The Magnus separation process would consist of passing a feed stream next to a fast-spinning magnet in order to create a selective rotation of the non-ferrous particles so as to deflect them away from the stream by the Magnus effect. The present work shows the experimental deflection for flat and granular particles with a size between 1 and 3 mm and gives a theoretical background of the separation. It is also shown that the measured deflections relate well to values from numerical simulations. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.