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Spark Plasma Sintering As a Solid-State Recycling Technique: The Case of Aluminum Alloy Scrap Consolidation.

ABSTRACT: Recently, "meltless" recycling techniques have been presented for the light metals category, targeting both energy and material savings by bypassing the final recycling step of remelting. In this context, the use of spark plasma sintering (SPS) is proposed in this paper as a novel solid-state recycling technique. The objective is two-fold: (I) to prove the technical feasibility of this approach; and (II) to characterize the recycled samples. Aluminum (Al) alloy scrap was selected to demonstrate the SPS effectiveness in producing fully-dense samples. For this purpose, Al alloy scrap in the form of machining chips was cold pre-compacted and sintered bellow the solidus temperature at 490 °C, under elevated pressure of 200 MPa. The dynamic scrap compaction, combined with electric current-based joule heating, achieved partial fracture of the stable surface oxides, desorption of the entrapped gases and activated the metallic surfaces, resulting in efficient solid-state chip welding eliminating residual porosity. The microhardness, the texture, the mechanical properties, the microstructure and the density of the recycled specimens have been investigated. An X-ray computed tomography (CT) analysis confirmed the density measurements, revealing a void-less bulk material with homogeneously distributed intermetallic compounds and oxides. The oxide content of the chips incorporated within the recycled material slightly increases its elastic properties. Finally, a thermal distribution simulation of the process in different segments illustrates the improved energy efficiency of this approach.

SUBMITTER: Paraskevas D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5456194 | biostudies-other | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Project description:The bimodal-grain-size 7075 aluminium alloys containing varied ratios of large and small 7075 aluminium powders were prepared by spark plasma sintering (SPS). The large powder was 100 ± 15 ?m in diameter and the small one was 10 ± 5 ?m in diameter. The 7075 aluminium alloys was completely densified under the 500 °C sintering temperature and 60 MPa pressure. The large powders constituted coarse grain zone, and the small powders constituted fine grain zone in sintered 7075 aluminium alloys. The microstructural and microchemical difference between the large and small powders was remained in coarse and fine grain zones in bulk alloys after SPS sintering, which allowed for us to investigate the effects of microstructure and microchemistry on passive properties of oxide film formed on sintered alloys. The average diameter of intermetallic phases was 201.3 nm in coarse grain zone, while its vale was 79.8 nm in fine grain zone. The alloying element content in intermetallic phases in coarse grain zone was 33% to 48% higher than that on fine grain zone. The alloying element depletion zone surrounding intermetallic phases in coarse grain zone showed a bigger width and a more severe element depletion. The coarse grain zone in alloys showed a bigger electrochemical heterogeneity as compared to fine grain zone. The passive film formed on coarse grain zone had a thicker thickness and a point defect density of 2.4 × 1024 m-3, and the film on fine grain zone had a thinner thickness and a point defect density of 4.0 × 1023 m-3. The film resistance was 3.25 × 105 ?cm2 on coarse grain zone, while it was 6.46 × 105 ?cm2 on fine grain zone. The passive potential range of sintered alloys increased from 457 mV to 678 mV, while the corrosion current density decreased from 8.59 × 10-7 A/cm2 to 6.78 × 10-7 A/cm2 as fine grain zone increasing from 0% to 100%, which implied that the corrosion resistance of alloys increased with the increasing content of fine grains. The passive film on coarse grain zone exhibited bigger corrosion cavities after pitting initiation compared to that on fine grain zone. The passive film formed on fine grain zone showed a better corrosion resistance. The protectiveness of passive film was mainly determined by defect density rather than the thickness in this work.

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Spark Plasma Sintering As a Solid-State Recycling Technique: The Case of Aluminum Alloy Scrap Consolidation.

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