Process of aluminum dross recycling and life cycle assessment for A1-Si alloys and brown fused alumina

• Published in: Transactions of Nonferrous Metals Society of China Vol. 20; no. 11; pp. 2155 - 2161
• Main Author: 洪建平 王俊 陈海 孙宝德 李家镜 陈冲
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: 再生铝工业; 回收过程; 棕刚玉; 生命周期评估; 硅合金
• ISSN: 1003-6326

In 2008, around 596 000 t of aluminum dross was generated from secondary aluminum industry in China; however, it was not sufficiently recycled yet. Approximately 95% of the Al dross was land filled without innocent treatment. The purpose of this work is to investigate Al dross recycling by environmentally efficient and friendly methods. Two methods of Al dross recycling which could utilize Al dross efficiently were presented. High-quality aluminum-silicon alloys and brown fused alumina （BFA） were produced successfully by recycling Al dross. Then, life cycle assessment （LCA） was performed to evaluate environmental impact of two methods of Al dross recycling process. The results show that the two methods are reasonable and the average recovery rate of Al dross is up to 98%. As the LCA results indicate, they have some advantages such as less natural resource consumption and pollutant emissions, which efficiently relieves the burden on the environment in electrolytic aluminum and secondary aluminum industry.