Research and industry are working together on more environmentally friendly production of lightweight components for the automotive industry, coordinated by the Helmholtz Center Hereon. The joint project "S3-ALU," funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK), will test the replacement of pure aluminum with recycled aluminum, which could reduce the CO2 footprint per vehicle by 55 percent.
Aluminum and CO2 emissions
The footprint of daily SUVs produced in Germany is about 22,000 tons of CO2. Part of this is due to the material used: aluminum, or primary aluminum. The pure form of aluminum is produced directly from the raw material bauxite and is the main component of alloys used in automotive production. A consortium from research and industry is now investigating the possibility of replacing the primary aluminum used to date with secondary aluminum, i.e. more impure, recycled aluminum - without losing its advantageous properties.
The savings potential is enormous: To produce one unit of secondary aluminum, only five percent of the energy is consumed compared to the production of primary aluminum. Transferred to automotive production, this means a saving of 0.7 metric tons of CO2 per vehicle or 700,000 metric tons of CO2 for annual SUV production in Germany. Aluminum is increasingly being used in electric vehicles, for example to offset the weight of the battery. This intensifies the need to investigate and optimize more climate-friendly alternatives such as secondary aluminum in terms of its application. Current forecasts show that the savings potential for aluminum-intensive designs is up to 1.7 tons of CO2 per vehicle.
Digital twin and secondary aluminum
Different compositions of secondary aluminum will be modeled using a digital twin to find the best possible substitute for the original. This means that the many material variants do not all have to be tested in experiments, but can be explored in the model, saving time and resources. Previous investigations have already shown that small impurities of the primary aluminum occur and are nevertheless acceptable for the safe use of the material. The question, however, is how large can or may the proportion of recycled aluminum become and in what composition? The digital twin can provide the answer.
"The development of a digital twin, i.e., a multi-scale physical representation of the material under investigation - the aluminum secondary alloy - will significantly shorten experimental efforts and make it possible to evaluate the available scraps of non-uniform quality in terms of their potential use in material fabrication or production," says Eugen Gazenbiller, a doctoral student at the Hereon Institute for Surface Research.
"S3-ALU"
The joint project "S3-ALU: Simulation methodologies for the evaluation of components and systems for sustainable lightweight construction with secondary aluminum" is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK) with 2 million euros over three years. Project partners from research are the Max Planck Institute for Iron Research (MPIE), Access e. V. and the Helmholtz Center Hereon, whose Institute for Surface Research is coordinating the project. From industry, Volkswagen AG, Bode - die Tür GmbH and LGL Bad Langensalza GmbH are involved.
