Research: New Alloy Families from Recycled Aluminium
Bar ohne Namen
Entschlossen verweigert sich Savage, der Bar einen Namen zu geben. Stattdessen sind drei klassische Design-Symbole das Logo der Trinkstätte in Dalston: ein gelbes Quadrat, ein rotes Viereck, ein blauer Kreis. Am meisten wurmt den sympathischen Franzosen dabei, dass es kein Gelbes-Dreieck-Emoji gibt. Das erschwert auf komische Weise die Kommunikation. Der Instagram Account lautet: a_bar_with_shapes-for_a_name und anderenorts tauchen die Begriffe ‘Savage Bar’ oder eben ‚Bauhaus Bar‘ auf.
Für den BCB bringt Savage nun sein Barkonzept mit und mixt für uns mit Unterstützung von Russian Standard Vodka an der perfekten Bar dazu.
Dr. Hanka Becker from the University of Magdeburg is researching new methods for the environmentally friendly and energy-efficient reuse of recycled aluminium alloys. With two million euros from the Emmy Noether Program, she is leading a project aimed at developing pioneering solutions for the sustainable use of aluminium.
Over the next six years, the expert in metallic materials will investigate how aluminium alloys, used in a variety of components in the transportation sector, construction, machinery and plant engineering, as well as household and leisure applications, can be recycled in an environmentally friendly and energy-efficient manner. The goal is to reuse these alloys without any loss of quality.
"New Alloy Families from Recycled Aluminium for Sustainability and Resource Conservation"
As part of the project "New Alloy Families from Recycled Aluminium for Sustainability and Resource Conservation," Dr. Becker will lead a research group aiming to investigate how metallic impurities and accompanying elements, introduced among other things by tool wear during processing or non-ideal scrap separation, can be rendered harmless or reduced in the material. "Answering this question is crucial for the industrial processing of recycled aluminium alloys. More and more aluminium products worldwide are reaching the end of their service life and must be cycled back into primary aluminium and energy in terms of sustainability and resource conservation," emphasizes Dr. Becker.
Unwanted Contamination and Material Components in the Recycling Process
Recycling aluminium alloys saves 95 percent energy compared to the production of primary aluminium. The high energy consumption in the production of primary aluminium lies in the energy-intensive process of separating oxygen from aluminium. "A major challenge in recycling aluminium alloys is removing unwanted contaminants and material components or developing suitable methods to deal with non-removable residues," says Dr. Becker.
The impurities, either already present in the alloys to be recycled or arising from the recycling process, affect the mechanical and functional properties of the aluminium and lead to reduced quality of the reused material. "Researching how to handle impurities and accompanying elements, which inevitably occur during the recycling process, is of great interest for the quality of recycled aluminum alloys," describes Dr. Becker her research approach.
Dr. Becker and her team will conduct an extensive experimental testing program with the aim to alter the internal structures of laboratory-made aluminium alloys and later apply these changes to technical alloys. This will be done using novel grain refiners, which are added to the molten metal to reduce the grain size of the material structure.
Materials scientist Dr Hanka Becker from Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg
© Jana Dünnhaupt/Uni Magdeburg
