Recycled aluminium

Your part has been something else before.

Car parts, drink cans and facade products. Remelted, alloyed to standard and cast into something new. Aluminium is well suited to being remelted and used again.

What secondary aluminium is

Secondary aluminium is recycled aluminium. Our raw material is recovered from aluminium products that have already done a job, such as car parts, drink cans and facade products.

The scrap is collected, sorted and remelted. It is then re-alloyed into full-value casting alloys to international standards. That last step is the point, and it is where most people misunderstand.

Our raw material comes from Metallco at Toten. It is the only named supplier in our value chain, and we name it because that makes the story checkable rather than merely pleasant.

Why aluminium suits this: the metal can be remelted and alloyed back to a standard composition. That is not true of every material.

Remelting also takes only a fraction of the energy needed to make new aluminium.

Does using recycled metal make the part worse?

No. But the question deserves a proper answer, not just a no.

What determines the properties of your part is the alloy designation — not whether the metal is primary or secondary. A casting alloy is defined by its chemical composition: how much silicon, copper, magnesium and iron it contains, within stated ranges. If the metal is delivered to that standard, it behaves as the standard says, regardless of where the atoms have been before.

That is precisely why the remelter re-alloys the scrap rather than simply melting it. The job consists of analysing the melt and adjusting the composition so it hits the specification.

Where there genuinely is a difference: most aluminium die casting alloys were developed for secondary metal in the first place and are very common. For certain special applications where the requirement is an extremely low tolerance for particular trace elements, primary metal may be specified. If you have such a specification, say so in the enquiry.

What you should ask for: the alloy designation on the quotation, not a description. Recycled aluminium is an origin. EN AC-xxxxx is a specification.

Which specific alloys we run is stated on request. We have not published the list yet, and we will not write up one we have not confirmed.

Data sheet

The raw material and the alloys

This is what we have documented about the metal and the raw material. Which alloys we run is available on request.

Alloys

Metals: Aluminium and zinc
Feedstock form: Ingot from established suppliers
Aluminium supplier: Metallco, Toten, Norway — secondary aluminium realloyed against international standards
Aluminium melting point: 660 °C
Aluminium casting temperature: 680–700 °C
Alloy selection: Made together with the customer, as part of the design review
Aluminium alloys, pressure die casting: Available on request
Aluminium alloys, gravity: Available on request
Zinc alloys: Available on request
Customer-specified alloy: Available on request
Material certificate: Available on request
Melt and batch traceability: Available on request
Recycled content: Available on request

Ask for the alloy designation

Send the enquiry with the requirements the part has to meet, and we will propose an alloy — and explain why.

Submit a request