Circular economy
Andrea Mroß and Dr. Thomas Waschkies.
Aluminum and aluminum processing are growing increasingly important amid today’s dwindling resources and stringent climate targets. The metal is now among the strategic raw materials essential to achieving climate neutrality. Thanks to its unique combination of physical properties, aluminum is the second most widely used metal, after steel. At the same time, it is a huge contributor to the circular economy, as manufacturing secondary aluminum requires only about five percent of the energy that must be used to produce new material.
Innovative, low-cost measurement system
The crucial factor in sustainable, reliable use of the metal is the material quality, which is in turn influenced to a significant degree by the purity of the melt: Contamination seriously impairs the material’s properties and reduces the lifespan of finished components. This means industry requires a continuous, fast and also reliable way to detect even minimal contamination at minimal cost. Previously, there were no marketable analytical methods of meeting these industrial needs.
The ultrasound-based measurement system AloX, which was developed by a team headed by Thomas Waschkies and Andrea Mross at the Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Testing IZFP, was designed specifically for the extreme requirements that apply in foundry settings. The innovative, inexpensive and cost-efficient tool makes it possible to determine the degree of non-metallic inclusions in molten aluminum quickly, on an ongoing basis and with superior accuracy.
In its statement, the jury notes in particular that the team entered “uncharted territory” by adapting ultrasonic measurement technology to the conditions involved in working with molten aluminum.
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft