| Summary: |
VILLAFUND project aims the development of an aluminium swarf new recovery process, inside the foundries. Traditionally, aluminium swarf is sold to remelters, but this option is quite expensive to companies, because the selling price is roughly 30% of the second melt raw material. Prior trials revealed that a 90% metal recovery is possible to achieve, if it is made in-house.
Futhermore, due to its low density and high contamination, aluminium swarf recovery is performed using high environmental impact fluids and fluxes, both for previous swarf conditioning operations and liquid metal treatment. Besides, the actual procedure generates dangerous residues that the remelting companies must alienate, usually at hihg cost.
The technique that will be developed, aims to recycle the swarf by melting it inside the foundries, in order to achieve a final product with properties similar to those of traditinal second melt aluminium ingot. Degassing, refining and modification operations will be performed using products and techniques with lower environmental impact than those used by remelters. Those techniques and procedures will be the major advances in the current industrial practice.
The final recovered product will be introduce in the production cycle together with remaining raw materials, from which a significant decrease in the prodution cost is foreseen.
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