Aluminium Recycling and Environmental Issues of Salt Slag Treatment

Environmental friendly recycling is the trend toward total recycling of aluminium metal. In the secondary aluminium industry, due to the complexity of compositions and contaminants in the various types of aluminium scraps, an understanding of the behavior of different scraps during melting is crucial in the recycling process. Salt slags are the byproducts of the secondary aluminium industry, which should be recycled and processed in a proper way by taking the environmental impact into consideration. This article provides qualitative assessment on 10 different commercial aluminium scraps for their relative recyclability via well-designed and controlled laboratory experiments. It confirms that more nonmetallic contaminants, smaller size, and higher ratio of surface area to body volume generally lead to a lower metal recovery. Recycling the scraps with lower recyclability normally generates more salt slags. High slag viscosity leads to more fine aluminum metal entrapped in the salt slag and thus increases the load of salt slag recycling. It was found that viscosity of the salt flux is increased with the amount of entrapped nonmetallic components, which affect the settling of heavier materials. In addition, the slag samples from the melting tests were leached and analyzed to evaluate the behavior of carbon containing scrap. The elevated carbon content in the scrap resulted in more carbide formation in salt slags and thus more methane generation in salt slag recycling with a higher environmental impact.