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BRIEFS
Aleris, Cleveland, offers a new 7017 aluminum alloy in North America for commercial
plate and defense uses. After extensive review and testing, the U.S. Army Research Lab
issued MIL-DTL-32505 for use in armor applications. 7017 offers high strength, good
weldability, and corrosion resistance. It is currently used in Europe and Asia on combat
vehicles to achieve superior ballistic protection. .
Microwaving toothpaste
tubes intoaluminum
Fifteen years ago, Howard Chase
and Carlos Ludlow-Palafox at the Univer-
sity of Cambridge, UK, discovered that an
over-microwaving process could be used
to recover useful materials from packag-
ing wastes. Plastic-aluminum laminate
packaging is commonly used for food,
drink, toothpaste, pet food, and cosmetic
products. The combination of plastic and
aluminum in the packaging poses a tech-
nical recycling challenge that until now
has been unsolved. “In the UK, roughly
160,000 tons of laminates are used per
year for packaging, which means at least
16,000 tons of aluminum is going into the
ground,” says Ludlow-Palafox.
The solution started in a relatively
simple way—a pile of particulate carbon
and some shredded laminated pack-
aging was placed inside a conventional
1.2 kW kitchen microwave, the air in-
side was replaced with nitrogen, and it
was set on full power until the tempera-
ture reached 600°C. When researchers
opened the door two minutes later, the
laminated material had been separated
into clean aluminum flakes and hydro-
carbon gases and oil.
Now fully commissioned, Cam-
bridge spinoff Enval Ltd. can recycle up to
2000 tons of packaging per year—rough-
ly the amount handled by regional waste
haulers—and generate enough energy
to run itself. Enval has an arrangement
with manufacturers of plastic-aluminum
laminates to recycle their industrial scrap
at lower cost than sending it to a landfill.
.
Lighter, safer
vehicle seats
Johnson Controls, Plymouth,
Mich., is reducing the use of metals in
vehicle seat structures by replacing
them with multi-material systems in its
CAMISMA (carbon-amide-metal-based
interior structure using a multi-materi-
al system approach) research project.
The seats are more than 40% lighter
than conventionally manufactured seat
structures and equally as safe.
An innovative industrial manufac-
turing process for volume production
Plastic-aluminum laminate packaging presents a technical recycling challenge that
causes millions of tons of rubbish to be disposed of in landfills each year. Courtesy of
Sam Stanton.
METALS | POLYMERS | CERAMICS
High-performance
plastics from Bayer
MaterialScience LLC,
Dallas, help protect
buildings and their
occupants with
products that not only
guard against vandalism
and forced entry, but
also offer bullet
resistance and blast
mitigation.
Hygard security
laminates are aN
architectural system
for a wide variety of
glazing applications
where security
is critical.
Recliners used in a multi-material
research project are 40% lighter than
conventionally manufactured seat
structures and equally as safe.
A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 5
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