Low Impact of Sustainable Aluminium

Purpose and goal

The feasibility study focused on the last steps of the heat exchangers for automotive applications (auto HEX) value chain. These last steps represent the material coming from the end-of-life scrap. The goal was to identify the auto HEX chain´s sustainability and cost improvement potential, as well as new business opportunities to minimise the material value loss. The results of the laboratory-scale remelting experiments are promising and indicate the possibility of recycling auto HEX to produce alloys suitable for auto HEX products, keeping the material within the same value chain.

Expected results and effects

This feasibility study would be successful if it could see new business opportunities. The results were surprisingly positive, and a new insight is now available for processing the end-of-life auto HEX at the partner company. The results of the laboratory-scale remelting experiments are promising and indicate the possibility of keeping the material within the same value chain. There is an increased drive for product cost calculations for future business cases. For this reason, the partners are preparing to continue the activities in a full-scale research project.

Planned approach and implementation

Literature study and data gathering directly at the company were critical to investigate what are the current possibilities. A cost model has been developed in cooperation with the company to capture the parameters, activities, times, and resources that are relevant for future analyses and give an overview of the material and cost flows affected by changes in incoming materials. The material analysis through remelting experiments was a preliminary study to verify what is the material yield upon remelting and how the chemical composition of the alloy can be controlled.