New Technologies for the Environment: Environmentally Benign Manufacturing - Casting by Design

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This New Technologies for the Environment exploratory research project proposes a novel technology to enable continuous casting of molten metals, in a single step, to the specifications of the designer. To cast aluminum foil, e.g., in a single step, would reduce CO2 emissions to the atmosphere by 250,000 tons per year, in the US alone. Every kilogram of aluminum saved in reducing manufacturing waste translates into electricity saved at the energy-hungry smelter. The technology is based on controlling length scales previously uncontrolled.Successful casting by design, or `tunable' casting, will use substrate modification to manipulate product quality. The goal is to condition the substrate by imposing thermal gradients before the contact zone. Gray-scales in ink-jet printing are produced by the spacing and arrangements of ink dots of the same size. In much the same way, the proposed gradients will be established with arrangements and spacing of hot spots. Laser heating will induce the hot spots.