Influence of Rare Earth Modification and Homogenization on the Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Recycled Can 3004 Aluminum

The microscopic structure of waste can aluminum material was researched by adding A15TiB refining agent, La-Ce rare earth and mixed rare earth modifiers, and the microstructure and mechanical performance of the modified aluminum material were studied. The experimental results show that the optimal refiner addition amount is 1.1wt%; the material performance can be significantly improved when the content of La-Ce rare earth ranges to a certain degree, but the mixed rare earth barely affects the refinement effect of the aluminum. When being homogenized, the mixed rare earth plays more obvious role in refining the aluminum material than La-Ce rare earth. The optimal plan is modifying the aluminum material with 3wt% mixed rare earth and homogenizing with annealing temperature of 580℃, annealing time of 12 hours and heating rate of 5℃/min while refining the material with 1.1wt% A1-5Ti-IB.

Current efficiency of recycling aluminum from aluminum scraps by electrolysis

Extracting aluminum from aluminum alloys in AlCl3-NaCl molten salts was investigated. Al coating was deposited on the copper cathode by the method of direct current deposition using aluminum alloys as anode. The purity of the deposited aluminum is about 99.7% with the energy consumption of 3-9 kW＆#183;h per kg Al, and the current efficiency is 44%-64% when the deposition process is carried out under 100 mA/cm2 for 4 h at 170 ＆#176;C. The effects of experimental parameters, such as molar ratio of AlCl3 to NaCl, cathodic current density and electrolysis time, on the current efficiency were studied. The molar ratio of AlCl3 to NaCl has little effect on the current efficiency, and the increase of deposition temperature is beneficial to the increase of current efficiency. However, the increase of current density or electrolysis time results in the decrease of current efficiency. The decrease of current efficiency is mainly related to the formation of dendritic or powder deposit of aluminum which is easy to fall into the electrolyte.

Recycling of waste aluminum scraps to fabricate sulfidated zero-valent iron-aluminum particles for enhanced chromate removal

Massive waste aluminum scraps produced from the spent aluminum products have high electron capacity and can be recycled as an attractive alternative to materials based on zerovalent iron(Fe^(0))for the removal of oxidative contaminants from wastewater.This study thus proposed an approach to fabricate micron-sized sulfidated zero-valent iron-aluminum particles(S-Al^(0)@Fe^(0))with high reactivity,electron selectivity and capacity using recycled waste aluminum scraps.S-Al^(0)@Fe^(0)with a three-layer structure contained zero-valent aluminum(Al^(0))core,Fe^(0) middle layer and iron sulfide(FeS)shell.The rates of chromate(Cr(Ⅵ))removal by S-Al^(0)@Fe^(0)at pH 5.0-9.0 were 1.6-5.9 times greater than that by sulfidated zero-valent iron(S-Fe^(0)).The Cr(Ⅵ)removal capacity of S-Al^(0)@Fe^(0)was 8.2-,11.3-and 46.9-fold greater than those of S-Fe0,zero-valent iron-aluminum(Al^(0)-Fe^(0))and Fe^(0),respectively.The chemical cost of S-Al^(0)@Fe^(0) for the equivalent Cr(Ⅵ)removal was 78.5%lower than that of S-Fe^(0).Negligible release of soluble aluminum during the Cr(Ⅵ)removal was observed.The significant enhancement in the reactivity and capacity of S-Al^(0)@Fe^(0)was partially ascribed to the higher reactivity and electron density of the Al0core than Fe^(0).More importantly,S-Al^(0)@Fe^(0) served as an electric cell to harness the persistent and selective electron transfer from the Al^(0)-Fe^(0) core to Cr(Ⅵ)at the surface via coupling Fe^(0)-Fe^(2+)-Fe^(3+)redox cycles,resulting in a higher electron utilization efficiency.Therefore,S-Al^(0)@Fe^(0) fabricated using recycled waste aluminum scraps can be a cost-effective and environmentally-friendly alternative to S-Fe^(0) for the enhanced removal of oxidative contaminants in industrial wastewater.

Unified casting(UniCast)aluminum alloy—a sustainable and low-carbon materials solution for vehicle lightweighting

Casting aluminum(Al)alloys have been widely used in the automotive industry to improve fuel economy as well as to reduce greenhouse gas(GHG)emissions in the vehicle use phase.However,the casting Al alloys used for load-bearing body and chassis components today are mostly made from primary Al with a low impurity Fe content typically less than 0.2 wt.%,owing to the requirements for high ductility and adequate fatigue strength.Primary Al is made directly from alumina which was refined from aluminum ore(bauxite),using an electrolytic process which consumes a lot of energy and produces GHG emissions that are much higher than those from steel making.The objective of this paper is to present a Unified Casting(UniCast)Al alloy concept as a sustainable materials solution for vehicle lightweighting.The UniCast alloy chemistry is intentionally designed to be more tolerant of Fe impurity.This chemistry can not only satisfy the requirements on castability,but also deliver mechanical properties needed for a variety of thin-walled and thick-walled automotive structural components that are produced by various casting processes.The UniCast alloy concept will contribute to the establishment of a closed-loop recycling system in the future as the shredded scrap obtained from the disposed end-of-life vehicles can be directly recycled back into UniCast alloy ingot with a more efficient sorting process.In addition,by setting the upper limit of Fe content in the UniCast alloy to a higher level,it will become possible to use a high fraction of post-consumer scraps to produce this alloy.To demonstrate the feasibility of this concept,an exemplary UniCast alloy chemistry has been elaborated in this article.Furthermore,challenges and future research opportunities related to the realization of UniCast alloy concept in the automotive industry are discussed.It is hoped that this article will be of great implication to industrial researchers and academicians for making concerted efforts to establish closed-loop recycling of Al castings for the automotive and other transportation industry segments.

Utilization of fly ash from coal-fired power plants in China

The rapidly increasing demand for energy in China leads to the construction of new power plants all over the country. Coal, as the main fuel resource of those power plants, results in increasing problems with the disposal of solid residues from combustion and off gas cleaning. This investigation describes chances for the utilization of fly ash from coal-fired power plants in China. After briefly comparing the situation in China and Germany, the status of aluminum recycling from fly ash and the ad- vantages for using fly ash in concrete products are introduced. Chemical and physical analyses of Chinese fly ash samples, e.g., X-ray diffraction (XRD), ICP (Inductive Coupled Plasma) and particle size analysis, water requirement, etc. are presented. Rea- sonable amounts of aluminum were detected in the samples under investigation, but for recovery only sophisticated procedures are available up to now. Therefore, simpler techniques are suggested for the first steps in the utilization of Chinese fly ash.

Development of Clarification Technology for Molten-Al by a Combination of Cyclone and Electromagnetic Separation

Aluminum has high recyclability and promising future,so aluminum recycling is important for the future society.However aluminum recycling has some problems;one problem is inclusions remaining in final aluminum products.In this study,we have proposed a new separation process of inclusion particles from molten aluminum;it is the electromagnetic cyclone separator,which consists of the liquid cyclone and the electromagnetic separator.We carried out water model experiments,in which the magnetic separation was used instead of the electromagnetic separation.A theoretical model to estimate the separation efficiency was developed and the results agreed with the water model experiments.The theoretical model was used to estimate the separation performance of the electromagnetic cyclone separator for molten aluminum,and it was predicted that the separator was effective clarification process for aluminum recycling.