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
Friday, July 11, 2008
New Process to Increase Efficiency of Aluminum Recycling
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Getting bored.. try this new aluminum contour bottles...
Coca-Cola is testing a new set of contoured aluminum bottles for it iconic namesake brand.
At the annual Consumer Analyst Group of New York conference here Coke is offering sleek new 250 ml aluminum bottles in red, black and silver for regular Coke, Coke Zero and Diet Coke.
A Coke spokesman said via email that the new bottles are a concept the company is "piloting."
"We wanted to provide the analysts (at the conference) with a snapshot of some of our ideas currently in the pipeline," he said. A sign by the vending machine at the Florida conference says that "the new design is a modern interpretation of the classic contour bottle in aluminum form." The new bottles aren't currently available in stores, but have appeared at select events and some night clubs.
The Coke spokesman said the success of the pilot programs would be one of the factors the company would consider before deciding if it wants to launch the new bottles nationally. He declined to say what the other determining factors would be.
-By Anjali Cordeiro, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2408; anjali.cordeiro@ dowjones.com
On the other side, listen to what Container Recycling Institute said about this new contour can ....
The Container Recycling Institute, today, announced a campaign to discourage Coke from going nationwide with their new can that's shaped like a contour bottle. "Coke's contour can," said Pat Franklin, Executive Director of CRI, "is costly to consumers and costly to the environment. All the consumer gets for the higher cost of the shapely, contour can is more waste and more pollution."
Franklin says the contour can holds the same amount of Coke Classic (12 fluid ounces) as Coke's standard aluminum cans, but is 8 mm taller and 2 grams heavier -- using 15 percent more aluminum than a regular, straight-walled Coke can. The shape of the can was inspired by the original contour glass Coca-Cola bottle, which according to the President of Coke USA, is "one of the world's most powerful equities with consumers."
"Mimicking the refillable, glass bottle, creates the image that the contour can is environmentally-friendly," said Franklin. "But in fact, the contour can creates more waste and more pollution and uses more water and more energy in its production than the standard can, and is many times more wasteful than the refillable glass bottle."
The new can is being marketed in Terre Haute, IN, the city where Coke's glass bottle was first patented in 1915, and four other cities: San Angelo, TX; Tucson and Sierra Vista, AZ and Las Cruces, NM. CRI has been organizing activists in the test-market cities, in an effort to discourage Coke from going nationwide with the can.
CRI estimates that the contour can will consume an additional 25 million pounds of aluminum a year, if it is introduced nationwide. With a 64 percent recycling rate, the institute estimates that approximately 9 million pounds will end up in landfills annually. CRI maintains that the introduction of the contour can flies in the face of the Coca-Cola Co.'s "commitment to the environment", as expressed in their publication, The Coca-Cola Company & The Environment. In that publication they declare, ". . . we have a responsibility to the billions of people . . . and that responsibility includes conducting our business in ways that protect and preserve the environment."
"If Coke goes to the national market with the contour can," said Franklin, "it will reverse the environmental policy of the world's leading soft drink manufacturer, and turn the clock backwards on source reduction."
# # #
NOTE: CRI is encouraging consumers to do four things to help prevent nationwide marketing of Coke's contour can.
1. Sign a petition showing their opposition to Coke's newest package
2. Write a letter to the editor of their local newspaper,
3. Send a check to 'Kick the Can Campaign', c/o The Container Recycling Institute
4. DON'T BUY COKE IN CONTOUR CANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Container Recycling Institute1911 Ft. Myer Drive, Suite 900Arlington, Virginia 22209703/276-9800 fax 276-9587
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Aluminum Recycling
Product Description
Even though over 30% of the aluminum produced worldwide now comes from secondary sources (recycled material), there are few books that cover the recycling process from beginning to end. Meeting the need for a comprehensive treatment of the aluminum recycling process, Aluminum Recycling explores the technology and processing strategies required to convert scrap aluminum and its alloys into new aluminum products and mixtures. The book details the collecting, sorting, and separating of scrap aluminum as well as the processing and upgrading equipment used. It first describes the aluminum alloys that are contained in the ore body and the various "mines" where aluminum scrap is found, followed by a discussion of the procedures for separating scrap aluminum from other materials. Subsequent chapters review the furnaces used for remelting the recovered scrap and the refining techniques that improve its purity and quality. The book also discusses the economics of scrap recycling and outlines the structure of the recycling industry. The final chapter addresses the unique environmental and safety challenges that recycling operations face. Although the benefits of recycling are numerous, aluminum recycling presents a series of unique challenges. Aluminum Recycling expertly leads you through the sequences of scrap aluminum recycling to provide a solid foundation for overcoming these obstacles.
Published on: 2006-11-01
Number of items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
248 pages
Designing Aluminum Alloys for a Recycling-Friendly World
Abstract
Recycling aluminum alloys has been shown to provide major economic benefits. As a result, it is appropriate for the aluminum industry and the U.S. as a whole to identify, develop, and implement all technologies that will optimize the benefits of recycling.This paper will focus primarily on alloy design for optimizing the reuse of recycled metal; this is both the most forward looking area as we move toward a more recycle friendly world, and the most overlooked for its potential in maximizing the recycle loop. Some specific approaches to alloy design for recycling are put forth, and some specific compositions for evaluation are proposed.Options for moving forward to further capitalize on the advantages of aluminum recycling are also addressed.
Download the full paper here:
Designing Aluminum Alloys for a Recycling-Friendly World, S.K. Das, Light Metal Age, June 2006. Nominated for Best Paper Award, Sloan Industry Centers.
