Aluminum Manufacturing Process

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) February 28, 2011 -- Today, aluminum is the 3rd most abundant metal in the world and its use surpasses that of any other metal, primarily due to the variety of its applications. It is lightweight, non-magnetic and strong. Thus, aluminum is produced on a mass scale. Since 1886, the methods of aluminum production haven’t changed much; for over 110 years we’ve been relying on the Hall-Heroult process.

Aluminum is produced from bauxite ores, which are first crushed and refined, before being sent through the Bayer’s process. It is during this process that alumina is produced. After production, alumina smelted during the Hall-Heroult process to make molten aluminum metal (99.8 % pure).
Molten aluminum cannot be left exposed to air for long, since it oxidizes fast. Hence, molten aluminum is maintained in crucible ovens to keep it in molten state.
Aluminum sow dryers/preheaters are sometimes used in mills in order to dry/preheat sows, or ingots, prior to melt. Sow dryers/preheaters are extremely important to ensuring the sows/ingots mold as desired. If the metal is not the right temperature when casting into ingots, the ingots will have a large divot on the top of them that could cause cracks in the aluminum metal.

Some mills may even employ scrap pre-heaters and recuperative heaters, which utilize the heat from flue gases and the temperature gradient of molten aluminum, to aid the efficiency of melting scrap metal.
Crucible furnaces are used in melting scrap metal into molten metal. Crucible furnaces are equipped to handle huge volumes of molten metal and are lined with refractory material and are mostly fired using the producer’s gas.
For more information about aluminum mill equipment, such as sow dryers/ preheaters and scrap preheaters/ dryers, please visit www.stelterbrinck.com

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