Dissipative Use of Critical Metals in the Aluminum Industry

Abstract

To improve properties such as weldability, corrosion resistance, strength, etc. the aluminum industry, in recent years, has enhanced functionality of aluminum alloys by increasing diversity of metals being used for alloying. These metals often include critical ones i.e. those that are geologically scarce, highly prone to supply bottleneck and/or highly demanded with no known substitute. A logical solution to the above-mentioned identifiers would be the recovery of these critical materials from the finished products at their end of life. Unfortunately, the yield of the critical metals, on recovery, is too low for feasible economic recovery and therefore they are dissipatively lost. This work quantifies the impacts of such losses using material flow analysis and life-cycle assessment in order to suggest best practices to minimize these impacts. Results show circular economy strategies can be effective for mitigating criticality risk in the aluminum industry.