Aluminum prices: Due to supply concerns, aluminum prices hit the highest level since 2008, Automotive News, ET Auto
Italy's secondary aluminum production ranks first in Europe, with a recycling rate of 70%, far exceeding the target set by the European Union (50% by 2025).
Centro Rottami was founded in 1985 and is located in Cisterna di Latina, Italy. It has been engaged in aluminum waste processing for 10 years. Gennaro del Prete, the technical director of the plant, said: "We started as a scrap iron shredder. Five years ago, we decided to focus on aluminum refining. Thanks to Tomra's technology, this specialization is possible."
The center can process approximately 1,500 tons of aluminum and 1,000 tons of ferrous metal scrap per month. The incoming aluminum mainly comes from old window profiles. They contain some contaminants, such as plastic and rubber, and other metal materials, such as copper, brass, zinc, and steel, all of which must be separated to produce pure aluminum parts.
The company has worked with Tomra for 12 years and currently has three Tomra Finder and three sorters based on Tomra X-Tract sensors. Once the incoming material is shredded by magnets and eddy current separators and pre-sorted, the material will follow two lines. The material dropped by the vortex separator is processed by the Finder device, which can recover metals such as stainless steel. Technologies such as Suppix and Z-Tect enable Finder to detect metal objects with ultra-precision, providing excellent purity levels to increase sales.
Three Tomra X-Tract devices simultaneously purify the aluminum discharged from the vortex separator. Thanks to advanced X-ray transmission technology, X-Tract can detect remaining contaminants and classify them according to their respective atomic densities. In this way, shredded aluminum does not contain heavy metals such as copper, brass, and cast aluminum, and has excellent accuracy and reliability, while using very little energy and increasing production capacity.
Del Prete recalled: “In 2019, we purchased two more Tomra X-Tract machines because the aluminum market’s requirements for quantity and quality standards continue to increase. Then, we merged the three machines into one production line, and the parts to be screened Subdivided in order to understand in more detail and make full use of the quality of aluminum recovered in the shredding process. This choice was also made to take advantage of the synergies of Indinvest, an aluminum smelter adjacent to the company."
Del Prete explained the cooperation with Indinvest: “Relying on a technology that guarantees selected pure aluminum is essential to building a trust relationship with the foundry. For this relationship, the continued high quality is essential. Thanks to Tomra, we achieve To achieve the highest quality: alloy materials and zinc and copper meet the requirements of profile production."
Indinvest LT is an important aluminum profile production and extrusion company used in this industry. The company is located next to Centro Rottami and has its own comprehensive billet foundry with an annual production capacity of 60,000 tons and 5 extrusion lines. The total production capacity of extruded profiles is 60,000 tons per year.
Indinvest LT Foundry Manager Ezio Porreca said: “Indinvest has been buying post-consumer scrap from Centro Rottami for about 5 years. Because Centro Rottami uses Tomra X-Tract machines, we have been able to reduce the usage of post-consumer materials in the furnace from approximately A significant increase from 20% to approximately 40 to 50%. This not only allowed us to reduce the use of main materials, but also achieved 5% energy and gas savings, which is of great significance to our production."
Indinvest LT's goal is to produce alloys that meet specific specifications. They have developed their own melt formulations, relying on a mixture of three materials to make these alloys: primary aluminum, post-production scrap in-house, and post-consumer scrap provided by Centro Rottami. Through mixing, a reference alloy for the production of billets is obtained. The higher the quality of waste, the less raw materials used.
Porreca continued: "By using cleaner recycled aluminum, production has increased significantly. If it is not cleaned properly, recycled aluminum may still contain some contaminants, such as paint, plastics and other materials, which in turn will form slag in the furnace. By using cleaning materials from Tomra, we can reduce pollutants and reduce the cleaning of the furnace. Cleaning the furnace includes opening the furnace door and lowering the temperature from 1100 degrees to 800 to 900 degrees. It takes time to restore it to 1100 degrees, natural gas And electricity."
Roberto Antichi, President of Indinvest LT, said: “For us, the concept of cooperation is very important when pursuing common goals. We started this project together, are leveraging synergies, and can clearly see that it has paid off.”
This cooperation has led to the production of higher quality and more environmentally friendly aluminum products: "Two years ago, we manufactured a blank called Creal, which contains 85% post-consumer aluminum, has mechanical properties, and most importantly, its The surface effect is comparable to primary aluminum created by bauxite aluminum manufacturers," Antichi said.
Thanks to the Tomra machine, Indinvest was able to achieve this incredible result. Otherwise, according to company representatives, the recycled aluminum content may be as low as 35-40%.
Antichi continued: "In recent years, we have shown us that our recycled aluminum is very popular in the market and there is increasing demand. Especially now, as the 2030 Paris Treaty requires reduction of carbon dioxide consumption, all customers are pushing Use recycled materials to produce profiles."
del Prete concludes: “One of the few positive factors in recent years is the growth trend of the aluminum industry. Due to the large availability of recycled materials and their mechanical properties (flexibility, durability, etc.), it will become the future of wood and glass. Material. This is why we focus on recycling aluminum. Many companies contacted us because they understand the technology we use, and they know they can rely on absolute quality recycled products. We have resold our aluminum to use this Companies in the most important industries of materials: automobiles and construction. But in the future, we also reserve the right to explore other markets. We have the best team and equipment!"
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