Estimating increasing diversity and dissipative loss of critical metals in the aluminum automotive sector
Estimating increasing diversity and dissipative loss of critical metals in the aluminum automotive sector
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DOI：
10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.06.016
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发表时间：
2019-11-01
影响因子：
13.2
通讯作者：
Gaustad, Gabrielle
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Arowosola, Ayomipo;Gaustad, Gabrielle
随着美国对产品和服务的需求和消费的增长，人们对可持续材料使用的担忧也在增加。在汽车行业，主要的可持续性问题围绕着倡导提高燃油经济性和采用可回收性更高的材料，以减少温室气体(GHG)排放。在汽车行业，实现这一目标的一个流行策略是轻量化。该领域的许多研究都集中在轻量化的环境效益上，例如，在汽车工业中用铝取代传统钢材将如何有助于减少环境中的二氧化碳当量排放量。铝在工业中用于不同的汽车应用的增加扩大了合金元素的范围。不幸的是，这些要素中的许多都被随意遗失了，也被认为是至关重要的。此外，一些合金元素在二次铝流中以流动(无用)元素的形式积累，因此成为有效回收的障碍，从而导致材料和经济损失。我们量化了材料损失，分析了关键金属的耗散造成的经济损失，并检查了随之而来的回收铝流中流动元素的积累。我们的结果表明，要实现更循环的经济，需要投资和进一步开发a)可操作的混合和配料策略，以了解合金添加及其实际成分的内在变异性，以及b)经济上可行的材料识别和分选技术，这将有助于减少这些物质损失和相关的经济损失。
As the demand for and consumption of products and services grow in the US, so does the concern for sustainable material usage. In the automotive industry, major sustainability issues revolve around advocating for improved fuel economy and the incorporation of materials with higher recyclability in order to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A popular strategy to achieve this in the automotive industry is light-weighting. Many studies in this field are focused on the environmental benefits of light-weighting, that is, how replacement of traditional steel in the automotive industry with aluminum, for instance, will help reduce the amount of CO2-eq emissions in the environment. The increasing use of aluminum in the industry for differing automotive applications broadens the range of alloying elements. Unfortunately, many of these elements are dissipatively lost and also deemed critical. Furthermore, some of the alloying elements accumulate as tramp (unwanted) elements in the secondary aluminum stream, hence posing as a barrier to effective recycling, thus leading to material and economic losses. We quantified the material losses and analyzed the economic losses attributed to the dissipation of critical metals and also examined the attendant accumulation of tramp elements in the recycled aluminum stream. Our results indicate that to achieve a more circular economy requires investment and further development of a) operational blending and batching strategies that comprehend alloying additions and the inherent variability of their actual composition, and b) economically feasible material identification and sorting technologies that will help in abating these material losses and associated economic losses.