China's recycled aluminum industry sets sail for a new journey

In 2020, China has an output of 7.25 million tons of recycled aluminum, a production capacity of about 10 million tons, about 600 recycled aluminum enterprises and nearly 70 recycled aluminum industrial bases. Since 2020, China's recycled aluminum industry has begun a new journey to a larger and higher stage of development. In this year, about 30 projects were put into production and construction in China's recycled aluminum industry, with a total production capacity of about 4.2 million tons and a total investment of more than 14 billion yuan, all of which are unprecedented. By 2030, recycled aluminum alloys will account for about 30% of China's consumption of aluminum and aluminum alloys.

In the 133 years by the end of 2020, the total amount of primary aluminum extracted has reached 1.55 billion tons, and more than 1.3 billion tons are still in use. The life cycle of aluminum is generally 10 to 30 years, and about 25% of aluminum has a life cycle of more than 50 years. In 2020, global primary aluminum production was about 65.03 million tons, of which China produced 37.08 million tons, accounting for 57 per cent of the world's total output, while other countries accounted for 43 per cent. The total output of recycled aluminum accounts for about 19% of the total output of primary aluminum, 12.36 million tons, and 16% of the total output of aluminum (primary aluminum + recycled aluminum) (77.39 million tons). In 2020, China produced 7.25 million tons of recycled aluminum, accounting for 19.6 per cent of primary aluminum production and 16.4 per cent of total aluminum production.

According to a report by (EA), the European aluminum association, in 2018, the carbon footprint of European primary aluminum was 8.6t CO2 eq/t aluminum, while only 0.5t CO2 eq/t recycled aluminum, that is, the greenhouse gas emissions of recycled aluminum were 8.1t CO2 eqt/t aluminum lower than that of primary aluminum, that is, only 5.8 per cent of primary aluminum.

According to the author's investigation and estimation, from 2020 to April 2021, there are 12 recycled aluminum projects in China with a total production capacity of 1.4 million tons, and 18 projects under construction with a total production capacity of about 3.1 million tons. The total investment of both is about 14 billion yuan, which is unprecedented, accounting for 31% of the original total production capacity.

In the past 10 years, the consumption of recycled aluminum in industrial developed countries accounted for 30% of the total aluminum consumption, while China accounted for only about 17%. The higher the number, the better the economic benefits, the lower the carbon footprint of aluminum, and also prove the overall economic level of a country or region.

Recycled aluminum projects under construction and production in China from 2020 to April 2021

Mingtai Aluminum Industry expands 380000 tons / year recycled Aluminum Project

Henan Mingtai Aluminum Co., Ltd. is one of the large flat rolling aluminum enterprises in China, with a production capacity of nearly 1.2 million tons / year and an output of 900000 tons in 2020. The company's existing recycled aluminum production capacity is about 300000 tons / year, which can meet the treatment of process waste generated in the company's existing production process. In order to actively implement the national environmental protection policy, based on the fact that there are more than 100 billion yuan of products in the surrounding aluminum industry gathering area, which will produce equivalent waste aluminum, Mingtai Aluminum decided to invest 400 million yuan, introduce equipment and expand the production of 380000 tons of recycled aluminum per year.

Shandong Hongchuang Holdings Construction of 200000 tons / year waste Aluminum Recycling Project

Hongchuang Aluminum holding Co., Ltd. set up a wholly-owned subsidiary, Zouping Hongzhuo Aluminum Co., Ltd., in Zouping City, Binzhou City, Shandong Province, to build a waste aluminum recycling project of 200000 tons / year, which is divided into two phases, each of which is 100000 tons / year. the first phase will be built in November 2019.

Aluminum Recycling Project of Binzhou Xinge Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd.

Xinge Group is a recycled aluminum enterprise in Taiwan Province and one of the largest recycled aluminum enterprises in the world. It has been a large recycled aluminum enterprise in China and a large exporter of recycled aluminum alloy in China since its factory in Shanghai was put into production in 1993. In May 2019, Xinge Group established Binzhou Xinge Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd., with a registered capital of 200 million yuan and invested 600 million yuan to build a 300000 ton / year recycled aluminum project, using the original plant of Weiqiao to be built in three phases. the total construction period is one and a half years, the first phase is 150000 tons / year recycled 3104 aluminum alloy melt, and the relevant local aluminum processing plants will be supplied in January 2021. The second phase is 50, 000 tons / year recycled 6063 aluminum alloy melt, which is supplied to the local building-structural aluminum profile extrusion plant; the third phase is to deal with 100000 tons / year secondary aluminum ash project.

After all the projects are put into production and reach production in March 2022, the 300000 ton / year recycled aluminum alloy project is expected to achieve an output value of 5 billion yuan / year, a pre-tax profit of 100 million yuan / year and a tax payment of 525 million yuan / year. 100000 tons / year aluminum ash comprehensive utilization project can achieve output value of 300 million yuan / year, pre-tax profit of 150 million yuan / year, tax payment of 70 million yuan / year. This project is one of the new large recycled aluminum projects in China, and it is a large project with short process and good benefit.

Henan Mianchi 300000 t / a recycled aluminum project

On January 30, 2020, Henan Mianchi County successfully signed a contract with Luoyang Higg Electric Automation Co., Ltd. for 300000 tons / year recycled aluminum project, with a total investment of 750 million yuan, divided into two phases. The first phase has been put into production at the end of August 2020, and the second phase is scheduled to be put into production in December 2022. After the project reaches production, it is estimated that the output value is 4.5 billion yuan / year, the profit and tax is 660 million yuan / year, and 350 employees are recruited.

Zhejiang Xinyue builds a 200000 ton / year recycled aluminum project in Guixi, Jiangxi Province

In March 2020, Zhejiang Xinyue holding Group Co., Ltd. signed a contract with Guixi City, Jiangxi Province for the construction of 200000 tons / year recycled aluminum project with a total investment of 2 billion yuan, mainly for the construction of production lines such as smelting, refining and purification, grain refinement and ingot casting.

Henan Gongyi Xinge 200000 t / an aluminum melt project was put into production at the end of the year.

Henan Gongyi Xinge Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd. 200000 tons / year recycled aluminum alloy melt direct supply project was put into production in June 2020, with a melt direct supply of 70, 000 tons / year, and the whole project was completed and put into production in December. thus, 200000 tons / year of high-precision recycled aluminum alloy melt can be directly supplied to Zhongfu Industrial Company every year, which is conducive to reducing the cost of refined and deep processing products, improving the profitability of enterprises and enhancing the overall competitiveness of enterprises. After part of the original aluminum production capacity was transferred to Guangyuan, Sichuan, Zhongfu Industrial Co., Ltd. made full use of the production site and abundant water, electricity, gas, heating and other effective resources in the Yulian Industrial Park of Gongyi headquarters. another major strategic measure to actively develop circular economy.

Jiangsu Hongshun aluminum industry Yancheng 200000 tons / year recycled aluminum project

Hongshun Aluminum Co., Ltd. has been approved by Jiangsu Province for 200000 tons / year recycled aluminum project with an investment of 200 million yuan. It is located in Shanggang Industrial Park in Jianhu, Yancheng City, and is built in two phases, each with 100000 tons / year. Among them: 50, 000 tons / year aluminum melt, 40, 000 tons / year ingots, 100000 tons / year aluminum alloy ingots. The main project of the project consists of 6 alloy melting lines, the main equipment is: 2 sets of crushers, 6 sets of 45-ton melting furnaces, 6 sets of 35-ton refining furnaces, 4 sets of 10-ton holding furnaces, 6 sets of aluminum ash treatment equipment, 12 ingot lines, 2 round ingot casting lines, 2 500 kg gas test furnaces.

100000 t / a recycled aluminum project in Yunxian County, Yunnan Province

The 100000 t / a recycled aluminum project in Yunxian County, Yunnan Province started construction in the industrial park on May 12, 2020, and was completed and put into production in November, with an investment of 84.5361 million yuan. Construction content: office building, expert dormitory, testing center, finished product warehouse, auxiliary material warehouse, raw material yard, disassembly and cleaning center, pretreatment workshop, recycled ingot and round ingot casting workshop, solid waste pretreatment workshop, solid waste transfer station, sewage treatment station, etc. After the completion of the project, it is estimated that the sales revenue will be 960 million yuan / year and the tax revenue will be 29.4 million yuan / year.

200000 tons / year Project of Fujian Huangyuan recycled Aluminum Co., Ltd.

The 200000 t / a project of Huangyuan recycled aluminum in Jiangle County, Fujian Province started construction on April 12, 2020. the first phase was put into production in December, with a total investment of 800 million yuan and a total construction area of 128000 m2. the recycled aluminum alloy and formwork profiles are produced by using the scrap and recycled aluminum of the aluminum processing and products plant as raw materials, and the sales income can reach 2.1 billion yuan / year after reaching production.

Fujian Meijia 100000 tons / year recycled aluminum processing project

Meijia Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd. is located in Dajia Industrial Park, Gutian County, Fujian Province. the company was established in 2018, mainly engaged in non-ferrous alloy research and development, casting, intensive processing of aluminum products and other related business. Its 100000 tons / year recycled aluminum intensive processing project was put into production on May 24 this year.

Anhui Suixi Home Aluminum Industry 100000 tons / year recycled Aluminum Project

Anhui Jiayuan Aluminum Co., Ltd. second phase 100000 tons / year recycled aluminum project was signed on May 28th, 2020, with a total investment of 250 million yuan. The construction contents include recycled aluminum alloy round ingots, industrial aluminum materials and finishing aluminum alloy series products. After completion, the sales income can reach 3 billion yuan / year, and the tax payment is not less than 10 million yuan / year.

Hunan Huaxiao 100000 t / an aluminum alloy project

Huaxiao Aluminum products Co., Ltd. is located in Miluo City, Hunan Province, Circular economy Industrial Park, covering a total area of 31.68mu, the overall plan is 100000 tons / year aluminum alloy ingots. Miluo is one of the large recycled aluminum bases south of the Yangtze River in China. Huaxiao Company settled in the Circular economy Industrial Park in order to make use of the recycled aluminum resources in the park. After reaching production, the sales income of the project can reach 500 million yuan / year, and the tax revenue will be 35 million yuan / year.

Rigel Mountain West Wenxi 300000 tons / year recycled Aluminum Project

The 300000 ton / year recycled aluminum project built by Shanghai Ruige Metal New Materials Co., Ltd. in Wenxi County, Shanxi Province, began construction in April 2020. the first phase, 100000 tons / year, was put into production in December of the same year, and the rest are under construction with a total investment of 500 million yuan. The construction period is 2 years, covering the disassembly, crushing, magnetic separation, smelting and casting of waste aluminum, using idle 270mu factory buildings. After all completed and reached production: 300000 tons / year of recycled aluminum alloy ingots (liquid), 50, 000 tons / year of magnesium alloy ingots, 20, 000 tons / year of aluminum alloy ingots, 20, 000 tons / year of aluminum master alloy, supporting 300000 tons / year aluminum melt conversion die-casting line, the total output value is about 5.41 billion yuan / year, recruiting more than 1500 employees. In addition to the recycled aluminum base in Pei she Township, Wenxi County, Shanxi Province, Shanghai Ruige Metal New Materials Co., Ltd. also has a base in Beihai Economic Development Zone, Binzhou City, Shandong Province. Rigg metal products are mainly used in automotive, 3C, communications and other fields.

Hubei Shunbo 200000 ton / year project

Hubei Shunbo Alloy Co., Ltd. 200000 tons / year recycled aluminum project 100000 tons / year has started trial operation on October 24th, 2020, and the rest is in steady progress.

Jiangxi Baotai 150000 t / an aluminum alloy ingot line was put into production in October 2020.

Jiangxi Baotai Nonferrous Metals Group Co., Ltd. 150000 tons / year recycled aluminum alloy ingot project was successfully put into production on October 4, 2020, so that the company's recycled aluminum production capacity increased to 300000 tons / year. The new production line has a high degree of automation. The 158-ton double-chamber furnace is equipped with a regenerative combustion system, and the natural gas consumption is about 50Nm3, which is 20% to 40% less than that of the ordinary melting furnace. It is also equipped with aluminum melt circulation system, organic flue gas incineration system, automatic temperature control system, crushing system, X-ray sorting system, automatic feeding system, circulating water cooling system, laser typing, robot automatic ingot folding, automatic weighing and so on. And realize the equipment data interconnection, which is a demonstration project of Baotai Group.

Zhejiang Quzhou 200000 t / a recycled aluminum alloy ingot project

Zhejiang Quzhou Yongchuang Aluminum Co., Ltd. signed a framework agreement with the people's Government of Qujiang District on October 15, 2020 for the project of 200000 tons / year recycled aluminum alloy ingots and 200000 tons / year aluminum alloy parts. The project has an investment of 2.5 billion yuan, including 2 50-ton recycled aluminum melting lines and 4 30-ton melting lines, 100 sets of die-casting production lines and finishing and testing equipment. 200 sets of new die-casting production line equipment, intelligent machining center, CNC lathe and so on. Yongchuang Aluminum Co., Ltd. was founded in 2005, located in Qujiang District, Quzhou City, mainly engaged in aluminum products, aluminum alloy ingots and general parts processing and manufacturing.

China Hongqiao raises HK $950 million to develop recycled aluminum industry

China Hongqiao announced on November 25 that the net proceeds from the subscription will be about HK $1.9 billion after deducting related expenses, it will be used for the following purposes: 50 per cent will be used for the development of recycled aluminum and lightweight materials production lines to further expand the group's business and enhance its research and development capabilities; another 50 per cent net will supplement the group's daily working capital.

Yunnan Zhongli Dongchuan Park 100000 tons / year Project

Yunnan Zhongli Aluminum Co., Ltd. 100000 tons / year recycled aluminum project covers an area of 46 mu, is expected to invest 150 million yuan, construction period of one year, recruiting about 200 employees. The company, founded in December 2016, is located in Dabanqiao, Guandu District, Kunming City, covering an area of 15000 m2 and currently employs more than 150. it mainly produces AC4B series, ADC12 series and A380 series recycled aluminum alloy ingots with a production capacity of 40,000 tons per year.

Yunnan Fuyuan 300000 ton / year Die casting Aluminum Alloy Project

On October 28, 2020, Jinhong Metal products Co., Ltd. held the opening ceremony of 300000 tons / year die-casting aluminum alloy project in Fuyuan County. The project, with a total investment of 1 billion yuan, covers an area of 80 mu, was put into production in the middle of 2022, with sales income of 4.2 billion yuan and tax revenue of 140 million yuan, recruiting more than 200 employees, mainly building recycled aluminum alloy ZLD104, ADC12, A380 series recycled aluminum alloy ingot production lines.

Baifeisa (China) builds a 300000 t / a recycled aluminum plant in Changge, Henan Province.

On November 19, 2020, Jiangsu Baifeisa (China) Investment Co., Ltd. held a signing ceremony in Nanjing for the construction of a recycled aluminum plant in Changge, Henan Province. It is planned to invest 1.5 billion yuan to build 300000 tons / year recycled aluminum project and 110000 tons / year aluminum salt slag recycling project. Baifeisa Group is a company engaged in the treatment of carbon and stainless steel dust and the comprehensive utilization of aluminum industry resources for a long time. Europe has a market share of 45% to 50%. It has 11 steel dust recovery plants and 8 salt slag plants in aluminum smelting industry around the world.

Trial operation of secondary aluminum ash utilization line in medium and light institutes

In December 2020, the first phase of the comprehensive utilization project of 120000 tons of secondary aluminum ash completed by Zhengzhou Research Institute of Chinalco was successfully trial-run. As of December 17, 2020, 1000 tons of aluminum ash have been treated, and 90 tons of crude aluminum and 700 tons of high aluminum materials with more than 60% aluminum content have been recovered. This technology solves the technical problems such as difficult utilization of secondary aluminum ash gas, high risk, high impurity content of harmless slag and limited ways of value-added utilization, and solves the harmless treatment and full resource utilization of secondary aluminum ash, which reaches the international level.

At present, the secondary aluminum ash produced in China is about 2 million tons / year. The adoption of this technology can reduce the hazardous waste treatment fee by about 6 billion yuan / year, and create a profit of 1 billion yuan / year ~ 2 billion yuan / year for the products. It not only solves a series of environmental protection problems, but also creates benefits, which can be popularized and applied in all enterprises producing aluminum and aluminum materials, and practice the concept of green development.

200000 tons / year project of waste aluminum utilization in Shunbo, Hubei Province

The completion ceremony of the Shunbo aluminum alloy waste aluminum recycling project in Laohekou City, Hubei Province was held on December 25, 2020. after the project reached production, 220000 tons of waste aluminum can be recycled and 200000 tons of recycled aluminum alloy ingots can be produced. The sales income is 3 billion yuan per year, the profit and tax is over 150 million yuan per year, and more than 400 jobs have been created.

Liaoning Ningshun 100000 t / a recycled aluminum profile project

Ningshun Metal products Co., Ltd. is located in Fuxin New material Industry Development Zone, Liaoning Province. Its 100000 tons / year recycled aluminum project was officially ignited and put into production on February 26th, 2021. The project invests 100 million yuan and has 6 aluminum melting furnaces. The products are 70,000 tons / year recycled aluminum alloy ingots and 30,000 tons / year round ingots. After reaching production, the project can achieve sales income of 1.5 billion yuan / year, tax of 40 million yuan / year and profit of about 100 million yuan / year.

The foundation of the Sino-German Hongshun circular science and technology project was laid, and the China-Europe circular science and technology industrial park was established.

On May 21, 2021, the foundation laying ceremony of the Sino-German Hongshun circular science and technology project was held in Shandong Zouping Economic and technological Development Zone, which was jointly built by China Hongqiao Group and Germany Shunerz Environmental Protection Group, focusing on the recycling of recycled metals and the reuse of resources. take the global recycling industrial park as a model for construction. It is one of the specific actions of Weiqiao Group to actively implement low-carbon transformation, help countries achieve the goal of "double carbon" and deal with global climate change.

The project adopts unique technology of removing impurities and grading of recycled aluminum, highly automated metal crushing and sorting technology. on the one hand, it makes up the key link of "recycling" of Binzhou aluminum industry chain. Binzhou has become one of the large recycling bases of recycled aluminum in China, on the other hand, it has played an important role in the development of the national recycled aluminum industry, and will make every effort to build the industrial chain of automobile disassembly and recycled aluminum recovery. Moving towards the dismantling center of Daiwa in northern China, Shunerz Group will introduce European researchers to Binzhou to set up an R & D center, and is also preparing a feasibility study on the recycling of lithium batteries for 50,000 electric vehicles.

Shunerz Group is committed to the long-term accumulated technical and operational experience in the fields of mixed metal recovery, non-ferrous metal recycling, scrap automobile disassembly and recycling, as well as solid R & D resources and strength, to give China Europe Hongshun recycling science and technology project the ability of continuous innovation. We will also work more closely with Weiqiao Entrepreneurship Group to build China-EU Recycling Science and Technology Industrial Park into a large non-ferrous metal recycling science and technology industrial park adhering to the concept of green development. make it continue to give full play to the value of industrial groups, circular economy and ecological construction.

Sino-German Hongshun Recycling Science and Technology Industrial Park has a total investment of 1.5 billion yuan, covering an area of 523.9 mu and a construction area of more than 320000 m2, mainly around the "3x N model", that is, scrapped automobile recycling, aluminum recycling, power battery recycling and supporting industrial chain. After completion and production, the emission of 1.9 million t CO2 eq/a can be reduced.

According to Japanese media reports, the new Nissan "2021 Rogue" is a model made by Nissan Motor Company using a closed-loop recycling system for aluminum parts. Compared with parts made from original aluminum alloy, the recovery system helps to reduce CO2 emissions, reduce dependence on newly exploited resource materials, and reduce the amount of waste aluminum in the production process. The energy consumption of aluminum ingots cast by recycled smelting with waste is only 5% weaker than that of the original aluminum ingots, while the greenhouse gas (GHG) is only 0.5t CO2 eq/t recycled aluminum, which is 8.1t CO2 eq/t Al, lower than the 8.6t CO2 eq/t aluminum extracted from the original aluminum, that is, a decrease of 94.2%, and the effect of "emission reduction" is extremely.

One of Nissan's measures to address the challenges of sustainability and lightweight is to adopt a closed-loop aluminum recovery system for the new Rogue model. The key technology of the system is to adopt a large-scale pneumatic conveying system to punch the engine cover and door with ABS sheet. After the waste aluminum is broken, the waste aluminum is separated into different grades of scrap. This separation greatly improves the quality of the waste aluminum, and then returns to the aluminum strip rolling plant. After smelting, casting and rolling, the ABS belt coil is made and delivered to Nissan Motor Company, forming a closed cycle again and again.

According to the Japan Aluminium Association, compared with using bauxite to produce raw aluminum, recycling waste aluminum can save more than 90% of resources. According to Nissan's 2022 green plan, (Green Program), aims to use materials such as recycled aluminum that do not rely on newly exploited resources to reduce the number of structures produced from raw aluminum by 30 per cent in cars produced in 2022. To achieve this goal, Nissan said it would use recyclable materials and develop biomaterials, use recyclable materials both at suppliers and internally during the production process, and minimize the net quality of the car.

Electric vehicles play a very important role in the journey to "double carbon". However, after more than a decade, there will be batch after batch of electric vehicles entering the scrap period, and there is no proper solution and technology for how to recycle the waste battery. it has become an environmental and economic problem to be solved. The European Union hopes to have 30 million electric vehicles on European roads by 2030; China is the world's largest producer and marketer of electric vehicles, and there will be no less electric vehicles, and how to deal with obsolete batteries will be a huge challenge. Because it is unprecedented for a brand new product to develop at such a rapid speed, it is very important to build a recycling industry because a large number of electric vehicle batteries will be obsolete in 10 or 15 years.

Although the components and structures of most electric vehicles are more or less the same as those of traditional cars, the big difference lies in batteries. Traditional lead-acid batteries have been widely recycled, but new energy electric vehicles use lithium-ion batteries, which can not be disassembled and recycled so simply. The battery pack of electric vehicles is larger and heavier than ordinary fossil fuel vehicles and consists of hundreds of individual lithium-ion batteries, all of which have to be removed one by one. They contain dangerous substances. If they are not disassembled properly, they may cause an explosion. Pay attention.

At present, there are two ways to disassemble and recycle electric vehicle batteries: one is to be recycled by car companies in the hope that their products will not be simply discarded after elimination, and some companies are already doing so. For example, Nissan Leaf cars are now reusing their old batteries for automatic guided vehicles to transport parts for the workshop. The second is to set up special recycling plants. For example, Volkswagen has set up a recycling plant in Saltz, Germany, where it has recovered some useful materials, such as cathode metals Co, Ni, Li, Mn, etc., and can also disassemble parts of the battery system, such as Al and Cu, but there are common problems of small scale and low efficiency. For example, at present, most of the materials in waste batteries are reduced to so-called "black substances" in the recovery process. That is, the mixture of Li, Mn, Co and Ni needs further and high energy consumption treatment to recover them and become pure and useful metals and materials. China still has a lot of work to do in this regard, and there is still a long way to go to become a global player, and environmental issues are also involved in the recycling process. The good thing is to build an automated robotic technology disassembly-recycling production line.

Concluding remarks

The recycled aluminum industry in New China sprang up with the birth of the country, because aluminum will be used in industrial production, and waste will be produced in aluminum processing products, so the recycled aluminum industry in New China has been in existence for 72 years. After decades, the recycled aluminum industry has formed a considerable independent industry. In 2020, China's output of recycled aluminum alloy has reached 7.25 million tons. If calculated at 18500 yuan / ton, the total output value will be 134.125 billion yuan.

Since 2020, China's recycled aluminum industry has entered a new stage of development and started a new journey. In terms of quantity, 12 recycled aluminum projects were put into production this year, 18 new projects were started, with a total production capacity of 4.2 million tons / year, with a total investment of more than 14 billion yuan, on an unprecedented scale, and this great development may continue for some time; second, some large projects adopt high-level technology and technology, such as Zhongde Hongshun Recycling Science and Technology Industrial Park, supporting a power battery recycling production line; Third, automobile manufacturing companies began to work closely with aluminum processing enterprises to form an effective closed cycle of aluminum-aluminum products-waste aluminum.

At present, the challenges faced by the recycled aluminum industry are to improve the recovery rate of aluminum in waste aluminum, to achieve grade-free recycling, to build a recycling production line for automotive power batteries, to improve the utilization of recycled aluminum alloy, and so on. If China's consumption of aluminum contains about 30% of recycled aluminum by 2030, then the recycled aluminum industry will be at the top of the world and make due contribution to the implementation of the "double carbon" goal. (Wang Zhutang)