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Smart Clean Aluminium Material Processing - Digital Sorting, Intelligent Pre-treatment, and Advanced Melt Refining

Objective

Aluminium recycling is a cornerstone of sustainable metallurgy, yet current processes remain constrained by hazardous fluxing agents, chemical cleaning, and high emissions of particulates, VOCs, dioxins, and salt slag waste. The CLEANMAT project develops an end-to-end optimisation pathway to address these challenges, integrating digitalisation, advanced materials science, and sustainable process engineering. A Digital Thread interlinks scrap sorting, pre-treatment, melt refining, and downstream alloy qualification, enabling AI-driven optimisation and traceability across the full value chain. Multi-sensor characterisation technologies will identify residual contaminants that evade conventional sorting, ensuring feedstock purity. Closed-loop heat pre-treatment and cleaning will safely eliminate organic coatings and residues. At the refining stage, two complementary approaches will be advanced: near-zero flux processing for induction furnaces, and ultra-low flux retrofits for rotary, reverberatory, and crucible furnaces, employing MHD flow, vacuum distillation, LiME, and HSMC conditioning. These processes will reduce flux use by up to 97%, while maintaining alloy quality and yield. Rigorous LCA, techno-economic, and occupational safety assessments will benchmark environmental and economic benefits. Industrial validation with automotive and recycling partners will demonstrate scalability and compliance with EN standards. CLEANMAT will deliver a replicable pathway to high-performance alloys from challenging scrap streams, establishing Europe’s global leadership in safe, low-emission, and circular aluminium recycling

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation Actions

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) HORIZON-CL4-2025-01

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Coordinator

BRUNEL UNIVERSITY LONDON
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 067 646,50
Address
KINGSTON LANE
UB8 3PH UXBRIDGE
United Kingdom

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Region
London Outer London — West and North West Harrow and Hillingdon
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data

Participants (16)

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