About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2026 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Circular Metallurgy: Design, Technology, Application
|
| Presentation Title |
Color-Enhanced Optical Sorting of Mixed Post-Consumer Aluminum Scrap |
| Author(s) |
Katherine Rader, Aashish Rohatgi, Qiang Dai, Brian Stapleton, Albert Lipson, Mert Efe |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Katherine Rader |
| Abstract Scope |
Shredded post-consumer aluminum scrap streams contain a mixture of cast and wrought pieces with significantly different compositions, making it difficult to control the chemistry of recycled aluminum alloys. Most mixed scrap is therefore downcycled into low-value cast aluminum parts. While it is currently possible to sort scrap by chemistry, these technologies are not always economically viable. In this work, we developed low-cost, high-throughput method to sort aluminum scrap pieces by alloy family. We applied a chemical treatment to post-consumer scrap pieces to produce distinguishable colors. This enabled an optical sorting system to separate cast and wrought scrap pieces with >95% accuracy. We also developed a chemical treatment to produce identifiable colors for wrought aluminum alloys families, such as 5xxx and 6xxx. This low-cost, color-enhanced optical sorting method has the potential to enable a circular supply chain in which post-consumer aluminum scrap can be recycled back into high-value wrought products. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Aluminum, Recycling and Secondary Recovery, Other |