Substitution of Critical Raw Materials on Aluminium Alloys for electrical vehicles

Project Information

SALEMA

Grant agreement ID: 101003785

DOI

10.3030/101003785

Project closed

EC signature date 7 May 2021

Start date 1 May 2021

End date 30 April 2024

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Climate action, Environment, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials

Total cost

€ 10 646 649,26

EU contribution

€ 8 933 723,63

Coordinated by

FUNDACIO EURECAT
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SALEMA (Substitution of Critical Raw Materials on Aluminium Alloys for electrical vehicles)

Reporting period: 2022-11-01 to 2024-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Raw Materials (RM) are essential for the sustainable and sound functioning of Europe’s industries as asserted in 2008 by the European Union Raw Materials Initiative (RMI) and the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on RM (EIP-SIP). Subsequently, the EU has continuously implemented policies and strategic decisions to improve the competitiveness of RM-related industries within the context of the EU’s wider industrial policy, e.g. COM/2017/0479: as RM industries play fundamental roles in many downstream sectors, such as automotive, aerospace, machinery, and renewable energy devices. Securing access to RM is crucial to stimulate investment in innovation and new technologies for a European Industrial Renaissance. Simultaneously, the EU is highly dependent on imports of several metal ores from international markets, while excessively high import reliance can threaten security of supply- this has become abundantly clear when shipment and transportation lines were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. An alternative resource of RM is recycling, which accounted for about 8% of overall material inputs to the EU economy in 2014. SALEMA addresses this concern for the CRM-reliant high performance Aluminium grades required in electrical vehicles, changing the input materials required to produce these advanced alloys, SALEMA proposes a circular economy model using scrap metal as an alternative source of CRM and the substitution of CRM for commonly available alloying elements. These developments were deployed in four industrial pilots (High Pressure Die Casting, Cold and Hot Sheet Stamping, and profile Extrusion), representing the most relevant processes in aluminium manufacture for lightweight automobiles and covering over 90% of the aluminium parts present in the automotive industry. SALEMA has involved 16 partners that represent the whole sector of aluminium in automotive applications. The consortium have been working over the last 3 years to demonstrate that the presented measures are competitive, technically feasible and contribute towards circular economy strategies and sustainability goals. The project addresses the key challenges in the different levels of the value chain: 1) Improving scrap classification and sorting systems to turn scrap into a valuable raw material; demonstrating the feasibility to substitute CRMs in alloying systems; 2) Developing recycled aluminium alloys with improved mechanical performance; 3) Optimizing High Pressure Die Casting (HPDC), sheet metal Stamping and Extrusion processes in a timely and cost-efficient manner to ensure the adoption of the developed alloys; 4) SALEMA have implemented 5 industrial pilots, and validated a total of 10 new developed Al alloys variants with 5 car-part demonstrations in 5 industrial case studies, which guarantees a prompt industrial deployment and take up.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

SALEMA has developed, validated and assess the performance of 10 new aluminium alloys for 3 different processes: HPDC, stamping and extrusion. For that the whole process followed along the 3 years of project has been:
• Over 200 alloys compositions have been investigated and modelled with thermodynamical simulation software and/or experimentally tested at lab scale.
• Different models have been developed and used to predict the alloy performance for the 3 different processes: understanding the role that play the different elements and their interaction in the alloy properties, estimating the alloy performance and processability, and taking into account the “criticality” of the alloy by calculating their “Criticality Index”.
• 31 alloy variants were produced and tested at the industrial laboratories of the corresponding research partner: 15 alloy variants for HPDC, 9 alloy variants for extrusion and 7 alloy variants for stamping. The performance of the tested alloy variants were assessed and the properties of the produced parts characterized.
• 10 alloy variants were tested in 5 different demonstrators: 4 for HPDC (3 in the shock-tower and 2 in the frontal frame), 3 for stamping (2 in cold stamping (inner hood) and 2 in hot stamping (b-pillar)) and 3 for extrusion (2 in the frontal frame and 2 in the battery box profile)
In addition to that, a scrap sorting prototype was developed and tested, that integrates readings from 4 different sensors: 3D scan camera to determine the shape volume and position of the scrap fragment, a colour dectector, an x-ray detector that estimates the density and, finally, a Laser Induced Breakdown Spectrometry that provides information about the chemical composition. Then the information is processed by a high-speed artificial intelligence algorithm that actuates over multiple robotic arms, picking and sorting the scrap fragments in the box that fits with their compositional range.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

SALEMA has provided numerous results in different state of development: new methods, new manufacturing processes, new automotive parts, new alloys.
The main results can be summarised as:
- 4 HPDC alloys designed, tested and validated in full industrial scale with different success rates:
• Variant 4 and 6 satisfy the demonstrators requirements and is ready to be used industrially
• Variant 7, very promising results have been obtained by further process and/or heat treatment tunning is required to meet the requirements.
• Variant 12, requires further development of alloy composition or processing understanding to avoid hot tearing.
- 2 alloys were designed, tested and validated in full industrial scale with different success rates for cold stamping:
• 5754 alloy with an 85% of recycled content, showing similar characteristics that the standard alloy.
• 6181 alloy with an 85% of recycled content, require process tunning to meet the required quality.
- 2 alloys were designed, tested and validated successfully in full industrial for hot stamping:
• 6181 alloy with an 85% of recycled content.
• 6111 alloy with an 85% of recycled content.
- 3 alloys were designed, tested and validated successfully in full industrial for extrusion:
• 6063_v3, produced with over 90% of recycled content, showing similar characteristics that the standard alloy.
• 6082_v3, produced with over 90% of recycled content, showing similar characteristics that the standard alloy.
• 6111_v2 with low CRM content. Very promising results have been obtained surpassing the reference alloys.
- Development of a multi-sensor robotic sorting system able to:
• Extract the aluminium casting and wrought fractions from a ZORBA stream.
• Extract the 1xxx, 2xxx, 3xxx, 4xxx, 5xxx, 6xxx and 7xxx families from the wrought fraction.
• Validate the separability of the new SALEMA alloys from other aluminium scrap.
Some of the results, as some of the alloys or the robotic sorting system, still require some development to be ready to be implemented in the market, that could be covered by a follow-up project.

Demonstrator part

Demonstrator part

Demonstrator part

Final Event Panel Discussion Policy for sustainability