Macerator is the first machine of the Industrial Craft 2 ore processing chain: every ore placed in the input slot comes out as two units of crushed ore, which smelt into twice as many ingots as a vanilla furnace gives from raw ore. The Macerator consumes 2 EU per tick, accepts low-voltage input of at most 32 EU per tick (power tier 1), buffers 1200 EU internally, and spends 600 EU on each 15-second grinding cycle. The crafting recipe combines flint, cobblestone, a machine casing and an electronic circuit, so the Macerator is reachable with early-game materials. The Macerator GUI carries one input slot, one output slot, one slot for a burnable energy item and four upgrade slots.

Besides ore doubling, the Macerator grinds other materials into more useful forms: metal ingots return to dust for re-smelting, metal plates yield eight tiny dust piles, cobblestone becomes sand, stone becomes cobblestone, a blaze rod gives five blaze powder, a bone gives four bone meal, and a block of coal grinds into nine coal dust. A Steel Ingot is the exception: steel grinds into Iron Dust, because steel dust does not exist in Industrial Craft 2. When no cable is nearby, redstone dropped into the energy item slot feeds the Macerator 800 EU per piece. Crushed ore from the Macerator feeds the later stages of the ore processing chain, including the Ore Washing Plant and the Thermal Centrifuge. Remove the Macerator with a wrench rather than a pickaxe, and expect a puff of dust while grinding continues.