Improving purity and conductivity of scrap melted aluminum conductor by using pre-melt and in-malt technique

Abstract

Aluminum recycling has a number of key environmental and economic benefits. With this energy and cost saving in mind, BMETcable industry now has target increasing its usage of secondary materials and its profit. However, the accumulation of impurities in this recycled materials stream may provide a significant compositional barrier to its goals. A number of studies and literature suggest that accumulation of unwanted elements are big problem for the case of aluminum, the list of problematic impurities is quite large, including but not limited to Si, Mg, Ni, Zn, Pb, Cr, Fe, Cu, V, and Mn. The removal of unwanted elements in the scrap stream is dictated by energy considerations of the melt process. Compared to many metals, it is challenging to remove tramp elements from aluminum. Therefore, with no simple thermodynamic solution, producer must identify strategies throughout the production process to migitate this elemental accumulation. This dissertation provides different methods of aluminum purity improving method in BMET Cables industry and took apart in improving purities of scrap melted aluminum conductor by using two stages that are pre-melt treatment such as hand sorting, magnetic separation, air separation and hot separation and in-melt treatment fluxing and refining methods are used