An Industrial Method for Determining the Amount of Organics in Representative Samples of Aluminum Scrap

Abstract

In recycling plants, especially those specializing in the recycling of low-grade aluminum scrap for wrought aluminum alloys, timely and accurate information about the amount of organics and other impurities in the incoming scrap is an important parameter in achieving both economic benefits and standard metallurgical quality of the recycled metal. To use aluminum scrap combined with organics as a source of aluminum for producing wrought aluminum alloys of standard quality, its metallurgical composition and the content of organic and other impurities should be quickly and cost-effectively analyzed on representative samples. In this work, an industrial thermogravimetric/differential thermal analysis of representative scrap samples was developed as an efficient analytical methodology for analyzing the humidity and organic impurities in incoming scrap. When performed in continuous mode, under a flowing atmosphere of argon with 1 wt.% of oxygen, this methodology enables a routine measurement of the humidity, the quantity of organics, and the carbon content in representative samples of incoming scrap in less than 15 min within an accuracy of ±0.5%.