Statistical Analysis of the Combined ECAP and Heat Treatment for Recycling Aluminum Chips Without Remelting

The main aim of this paper is to present an environmentally friendly method for aluminum recycling. Development of new recycling technologies in order to increase scrap reuse potential and CO2 emission savings are of the main importance for aluminum circular economy. In this paper, aluminum chips waste was recycled without any remelting phase in order to increase energy and material savings. The presented process is usually called solid state recycling or direct recycling. Solid state recycling process consists of chips cleaning, cold pre-compaction and hot direct extrusion followed by a combination of equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) and heat treatment. Influence of holding time during solid solution treatment and both artificial aging time and temperature on mechanical properties of the recycled EN AW 6082 aluminum chips were investigated. A comprehensive number of the experiments were performed utilizing design of experiments approach and response surface methodology. Regression models were developed for describe the influence of heat treatment parameters for presented solid state recycling process on mechanical properties of the recycled samples. Utilizing novel procedure high quality recycled samples were obtained with mechanical properties comparable with commercially produced EN AW 6082 aluminum alloy in T6 temper condition. Metallographic analysis of the recycled samples was also performed