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An Alternative to the Recycling of Fe-Contaminated Al

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Abstract

Iron is considered an unavoidable impurity in Al–Si alloys, since it is collected during melting and casting operations. This is particularly critical when scraped and recycled materials are used. Excessive iron can reduce the mechanical properties. This is explained by the formation of Fe-bearing intermetallic particles, since the alloy properties are deeply related to their type, size, and amount within the microstructure. The effects of Ni addition on the microstructure of impure Al–Si alloys have not been established so far. As such, the present investigation examines Fe- and Fe/Ni-containing Al–9 wt% Si alloys. Two directionally solidified (DS) alloys are investigated: the Al–9 wt% Si–0.5 wt% Fe (nonmodified) and Al–9 wt% Si–0.5 wt% Fe–0.5 wt% Ni (Ni-modified) alloys. The focus is to determine solidification conditions (i.e., cooling rate, TR; and growth rate, VL) as well as Fe- and Fe/Ni-containing Al–9Si alloys that will yield particular volume fractions, sizes and shapes of Fe-bearing intermetallics. Considering a certain limit of the dendritic microstructure scale (i.e., λ1 > 100 μm), it is shown that the ultimate tensile strength of the Al–9Si–Fe–Ni alloy is higher than that of the Al–9Si–Fe alloy and quite close to that of an Al–9Si alloy, that is, the beneficial effect of Ni addition on providing lower fraction and more compacted Fe-bearing intermetallics has counterbalanced the deleterious effect of the Fe contaminated aluminum on the tensile strength. The elongation-to-fracture, however, only approaches that of the Al–9Si alloy for the smallest λ1 values, which are associated with the highest solidification cooling rates.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation, Brazil: Grants 2016/10596-6, 2015/11863-5, 2017/12741-6, 2017/16058-9) and CNPq—the Brazilian Research Council for their financial supports. The authors are also grateful to the Brazilian Nanotechnology National Laboratory—LNNano, CNPEM, Campinas, Brazil for their support on the XRD analyses.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Manufacturing and Materials Engineering, University of Campinas UNICAMP, Campinas, SP, 13083-860, Brazil

    Manuel V. Canté, Thiago S. Lima, Amauri Garcia & Noé Cheung

  2. Marine Institute, Federal University of São Paulo, UNIFESP, Santos, SP, 11030-400, Brazil

    Crystopher Brito

  3. Department of Materials Engineering, Federal University of São Carlos UFSCar, São Carlos, SP, 13565-905, Brazil

    José E. Spinelli

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  1. Manuel V. Canté
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Correspondence to José E. Spinelli.

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The contributing editor for this article was Brajendra Mishra.

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Canté, M.V., Lima, T.S., Brito, C. et al. An Alternative to the Recycling of Fe-Contaminated Al. J. Sustain. Metall. 4, 412–426 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40831-018-0188-y

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