ALUMINUM MASTER ALLOYS AND ADDITIVES “THE MAGIC INGREDIENTS”

The U.S. Aluminum Industry is the world’s largest, producing about 20 billion pounds of metal annually. The industry employed 141,000 people with an annual payroll of $5.2 billion and shipped $38.8 billion in products in 2000. The high quality of these products and the profitability of the industry are due, in large part, to the contributions of a niche industry made up of the Master Alloys and Additives companies. These companies have dedicated their efforts to providing the Aluminum Industry with special alloys and additives that reduce manufacturing cycle time and enhance product quality. Some of their contributions to the aluminum industry are presented below.

http://www.aluminum.org/Content/NavigationMenu/TheIndustry/MasterAlloys/default.htm

Bruker AXS Expands Instrumentation Product Line for Die Casting Analysis with World's First Handheld XRF to Include Silicon Drift Detector

Bruker AXS announces another technology breakthrough for the die casting industry with the introduction of its new TRACERturboSDTM, the world's first handheld X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) instrument that uses a Silicon Drift Detector (SDD) for dramatically improved speed, sensitivity and resolution. Bruker's industry-leading proprietary XFlashTM SDD, previously available only in high-performance laboratory XRF instruments, now offers unprecedented speed and analytical specificity when integrated into the novel handheld TRACERturboSD
With this announcement, the Bruker AXS Handheld business, until recently known as Keymaster Technologies Inc., builds on its long tradition of technology leadership in the handheld XRF industry that includes:

2001 - First tube-based handheld XRF
2004 - First vacuum handheld XRF, co-invented with NASA
2008 - First SDD-based handheld XRF

The revolutionary TRACERturboSD with integrated SDD offers unparalleled speed, sensitivity and energy resolution, previously found only in more expensive laboratory systems. Now all handheld XRF customer segments can benefit from these compelling performance advantages in their analytical work. In the aerospace metals industry, the proprietary Bruker SDD technology enables TRACERturboSD users to better and faster analyze sophisticated light element alloys, even without the use of a vacuum or helium attachment. In the general metals analysis markets, the Bruker TRACERturboSD offers higher speed, sensitivity and selectivity for many demanding handheld XRF applications.

This detector provides a major improvement in the analytical performance of handheld alloy analyzers. The measurement precision is improved by a factor of two to three times, in addition to making the measurement of light elements such as Mg, Al and Si possible when operating in air mode. The TRACERturboSD provides a new capability of measuring aluminum in titanium alloys and magnesium and silicon in aluminum alloys, with no vacuum or helium required. For additional sensitivity, the well-known joint Bruker-NASA vacuum technology can be combined with the SDD to provide the best sensitivity possible in a handheld XRF instrument.

The TRACER turboSD includes all of the standard features of the highly-regarded Bruker S1 Tracer analyzer, such as Grade ID and chemistry, a unique PASS/FAIL analysis capability and the largest Grade library in the industry. The capabilities of the TRACERturboSD make it the ideal analyzer for the measurement of all types of alloys. In addition to the new high-end TRACERturboSD, Bruker AXS continues to offer the standard S1 TracerTM handheld instrument with traditional SiPIN diode technology for routine analysis

John Landefeld, Vice President of Bruker AXS Handheld, stated: "This breakthrough continues our tradition of technology leadership, going back to the initial introduction of tube-based XRF handhelds in 2001. Following the joint NASA-Bruker development of vacuum technology for handhelds in 2004, Bruker proves, once again, to be the overall technology leader in handheld XRF instrumentation, especially in the metals industries."

"The die casting industry will be particularly pleased to find that high-end handheld XRF can now approach the capabilities of laboratory systems," added John Patterson, Director of Marketing and Product Management of Bruker AXS Handheld.
For more TRACERturboSD information, please visit: www.bruker-axs.com/handheld.

Why Aluminum May Glow Like Gold

by William Pentland 06.03.08, 2:05 PM ET

Since gold, grain and oil prices soared to previously unfathomable heights, everyone wants to know what's next. The answer may be aluminum.

Last Friday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) amended an obscure clean water regulation that restricted use of aluminum in automobiles because of a potentially harmful byproduct created in the manufacturing process.

Car makers treat aluminum to increase protection from corrosion in multiple ways, but the cheapest is an adhesive bonding process that uses zinc phosphate. Since the early 1980s, the EPA has included waste created from zinc phosphate processing on its list of FO19 hazardous wastes, which requires expensive additional treatment. The process apparently creates high concentrations of potentially harmful water contaminants.

The restriction drove up the cost of aluminum car components by forcing car makers to implement expensive clean-up systems. As a result, last week's amendment will substantially reduce the cost of aluminum-based car components, which will likely accelerate the industry's plans to replace vast amounts of steel currently used in cars with aluminum.

Although the EPA began its formal review of the aluminum restriction in 2006, the agency's decision appeared earlier than expected, which industry insiders imagined would not appear until later this year or early next year. The timing could reflect the Bush administration's desire that all major regulatory changes be initiated by June 1 to make sure they are finalized before the next president takes office, as reported May 31 by The New York Times.

Despite an industry-wide consensus that aluminum prices would fall in 2008, the opposite has happened. Prices have climbed nearly 25% since January. Since April, banks, including Goldman Sachs (nyse: GS - news - people ), UBS (nyse: UBS - news - people ), Lehman Brothers (nyse: LEH - news - people ) and Citigroup (nyse: C - news - people ), have raised forecasts for aluminum. Alcoa's (nyse: AA - news - people ) stock price has also soared.

Several industry analysts have revised their forecasts for aluminum prices in recent months. On Friday, aluminum prices in the futures market exploded.

Congress' recent decision to raise fuel efficiency requirements has intensified the auto industry's interest in lightweight materials. Aluminum could reduce the weight of cars dramatically because it weighs roughly half as much as steel. Every 10% reduction in car weight results in a 6% to 8% decrease in gasoline consumption.

Although advanced materials like carbon fiber weigh less than aluminum and are several times stronger than steel, they would require substantial upgrades of extant manufacturing facilities to implement. However, aluminum is compatible with current large-volume manufacturing facilities and body shops that would be expensive to overhaul.

"If you can stamp it, you want to stick with steel or aluminum," Mark Verbrugge, director of General Motors' Materials and Processes Lab, told Design News magazine earlier this year. "If you want to accentuate styling, composites are a better bet. But for the mainstream, composites are having a tough time competing with existing technologies."
The aluminum industry has presented the agency's decision in terms of environmental benefits that it claims will accrue from the de-listing.

"Every pound of aluminum used in a car reduces CO2 emissions by 20 pounds over 100,000 miles," the aluminum industry claims in a lobbying document. "Fifteen million aluminum intensive vehicles containing 250 pounds of aluminum would: save 3.5 billion gallons of gasoline [and] reduce CO2 emissions by 37.5 million tons."

Yet any cuts in carbon emissions might be outweighed by the negative affect aluminum could have on water supplies. And from the looks of things, car makers have already begun using aluminum--extensively.

The 2008 Ford Focus will use high-strength aluminum to replace steel in front-brake calipers. The new aluminum brakes will weigh 7.5 pounds less than their steel predecessor. In addition, two-thirds of the new Ford Focus fleet will have aluminum wheels, which will weigh 22 pounds less than previous models.

Since 1997, the EPA has granted a dozen exemptions to the rule for specific auto manufacturing facilities across the U.S., which has considerably increased the use of aluminum in the automobile industry. Last week's decision could trump those increases by an order of magnitude.
Ford has developed a prototype vehicle--the P2000--that replaces steel and cast iron in several key components as part of an effort to reduce the weight of a vehicle by 40%, which would create dramatic fuel efficiencies. Ford's prototype will increase the aluminum content by 256% over previous models, according to a report conducted by Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Center for Transportation Analysis. Other car makers have also developed aluminum-based prototypes.

A separate study conducted by the Center for Transportation Analysis in 2001 evaluated the environmental impact likely to result from the increased use of aluminum in automobiles. The analysis did not address water contamination, which at the time would have been avoided, since the EPA rule remained in force. Instead, the study expressed a primary concern with aluminum's environmental impact during its extraction process: "The largest single contributor to the total waste of [light weight materials being considered for cars] is aluminum, the extraction of which produces large volumes of mineral waste."

The study also noted that while the increase in aluminum use would have the most severe affects in Washington, New York, Oregon, West Virginia and Ohio, "Every region in the United States could potentially experience some change in environmental impact with the introduction of new automotive materials."

Source: Forbes.com

New Process to Increase Efficiency of Aluminum Recycling

A new recycling process using advanced lasers to improve automotive scrap sorting can help bring even more environmentally friendly cars and trucks to market, according to an announcement today by the auto and aluminum industries, made through their Auto Aluminum Alliance, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy.

By employing lasers to identify and recover metals from scrapped vehicles, researchers have demonstrated the ability to separate cast from wrought alloys, as well as the ability to separate wrought alloys from each other at commercially viable rates.

The announcement is a potential boon to automakers and suppliers since this advanced recycling process promises to improve economic efficiency by recovering greater quantities of high-value, high-strength, high-performance aluminum from scrapped motor vehicles. Ultimately, this will allow greater use of either recycled or primary automotive aluminum -- which weigh significantly less than steel -- and will help produce even more environmentally friendly autos since lighter vehicles get higher gas mileage and emit fewer emissions.

For the 2001 model year, aluminum passed plastics and became the third most-used material in cars and trucks. Nearly 90% of automotive aluminum today is recovered and recycled. While this aluminum represents less than 10% of the average motor vehicle by weight, it already accounts for roughly half of the vehicle's value as scrap.

``Each year, automakers are using greater amounts of aluminum to help boost fuel economy and performance while maintaining safety. This advanced scrap sorting process will help ensure that automakers have a more affordable supply of recycled aluminum for the future. It also shows the great strides that can occur when the auto, the aluminum and the scrap industries work together to solve technical challenges,'' added Dr. Richard Klimisch, Vice President of The Aluminum Association.

This advanced method of separating scrap materials is being evaluated by a Belleville, Mich. metals processing firm, Huron Valley Steel Corporation. The Auto Aluminum Alliance is working with Huron Valley as part of a one-year agreement launched Aug. 24. Using a sophisticated technique called Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), the new process uses a laser to first clean the surface of the particle by laser ablation, and then it employs a laser pulse to hit the same spot on the particle as it moves down a conveyer belt. This second laser pulse vaporizes a small amount of material from the metal's surface creating a small, highly luminescent plume of plasma, or ionized gas. To quantitatively determine the metal's chemical makeup, the plume is then analyzed by a technique called optical emission spectroscopy. Once the verification is made, the scrap is sorted by alloy on a piece-by-piece basis.

This breakthrough process is significant because it provides a practical way of sorting the scrap at commercially viable rates. Up to now, such alloys were sorted manually, which is a slow and costly process. It is estimated that the first commercial sorting center will be able to analyze and sort 100 million pounds of aluminum per year.

Increasing the efficiency of recycling aluminum does more than add value to recycling aluminum for automakers, it also reduces energy consumption. The production of recycled aluminum requires just 5% of the energy needed to produce primary materials.

The Auto Aluminum Alliance is an inter-industry collaborative research effort between USCAR and The Aluminum Association, Inc., and it is reviewing technical projects to further accelerate the use of new and improved aluminum technologies for motor vehicles.

USCAR is the umbrella organization of DaimlerChrysler, Ford and General Motors, formed in 1992 to further strengthen the technology base of the domestic auto industry through cooperative, pre-competitive research, carried out in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy.

Source: The Aluminum Association

Increase in aluminum use saves 1 billion liters of fuel per year in Europe

Aluminum use in Europe has grown from 100 to 290 lbs per car since 1990 and is expected to add another 55 lbs by 2010. The weight reductions from replacing steel and other materials with the lighter metal have contributed to annual fuel consumption reductions of about 250 million gallons according to a new study. The European Aluminum Association and Knibb, Gormezano & Partners did a study with data from car-makers and suppliers based on the 15 million cars produced in 2005. Along with the reduced fuel consumption, CO2 emissions are reduced by 40 million tonnes over the life-cycle of the vehicles. Aluminum is being increasingly used in engine blocks and heads, suspension components and also in body panels and structures.

More detail can be found at the following link.

The calculations in the study are based on the following assumptions:

• Car lifespan of 200,000 km; yearly vehicle kilometers traveled 15,000 km.
• 0.35 liters of fuel saved per 100 km per 100 kg weight reduction.
• 1 kg of aluminum provides 1 kg of lightweighting.
• 2.835 kg of CO2 per liter of fuel, as the mean value for gasoline and diesel, including pre-combustion (i.e. CO2 generation for fuel production)
• 2.455 kg of CO2 per liter of fuel, as mean value for gasoline and diesel, excluding pre-combustion.
  

From picture: The VW Polo BlueMotion has been selected as a finalist for the 2007 World Green Car title.

The Volkswagen Polo BlueMotion has the lowest CO2 emissions of any car on sale in the UK, electric cars excepted. At just 102g/km, it's cleaner than any other petrol, diesel or petrol-electric hybrid currently offered. And its 72mpg on the official combined cycle beats them on fuel consumption too.

How does it manage it? A combination of highly efficient engine, light weight, high gearing and slick aerodynamics.

Energy Crisis really affects all industries, including aluminum

Kaiser Aluminum Corp. said it will add surcharges to all new orders of fabricated aluminum products beginning July 1 to offset rising costs for natural gas, electricity and diesel fuel.

The company said commodity prices for natural gas and diesel fuel was about 60 percent higher in May compared with the average 2007 price. The company said the charges will be based on indexes provided by the U.S. Department of Energy and will be updated monthly. The company believed that using a surcharge is the most transparent method to recover these costs.

Constricted supplies and robust world demand could push aluminum prices up to $3,600-$4,000 per metric ton by the end of the year and $ 4,250-$4,500/ton by the end of 2009, industry analysts said.

As China leads a surge in global demand for aluminum, the industry is attempting to keep up in the face of rising energy prices, increasingly prevalent speculation in commodities market, and uncertainly over approaches to curb global climate change. These factors, market analysts said, are buttressing the price of a commodity already in high demand given its relatively low price compared to copper -- a substitute for aluminum.

Source: Dow Jones Newswires and AP