CASE STUDY NO. 9643
KEY WORDS ALUMINUM DROSS, WASTE RECLAMATION
S&R Enterprises, Inc.
305 Dimension Avenue
P.O. Box 810
Wabash, IN 46992
Contact: Thomas F. Gebhart, President. Tel: 219-563-2409. Fax: 219-563-3876.
Summary
Residual saltcake is crushed to allow extraction of reclaimable aluminum; dross is crushed before melting to reduce salts needed to melt. Together these processes reduce the company's disposed waste by an estimated 3,875 tons a year.
Action
S&R Enterprises is an aluminum dross reclamation foundry which operates, on a 24-hour basis, two rotary style furnaces to melt dross, known as slag, from primary and secondary aluminum manufacturers. The molten aluminum is cooled into 1,000-pound tub units called sows.
Through the melting process, a byproduct called saltcake is produced. This residue contains spent salt, oxides, and traces of aluminum. Previously, the entire residue was disposed in a landfill. In the early 1990s, S&R recognized that its disposal costs were becoming excessive and that it might be possible to reclaim useful aluminum from the waste saltcake.
Working in conjunction witb Altek International, Exton, Pa., company engineers developed a system for crushing saltcake and reclaiming aluminum in the form of concentrates. These concentrates can be remelted and poured into 1,000-pound sows or sold as is. In addition to using the system to crush saltcake, S&R is using it to crush the dross it melts in its furnaces before being melted. This reduces the mass sent to the furnace, thus reducing the amount of salt added to the furnace during the melt. Reducing the amount of salt added to the melt directly reduces the amount of saltcake generated by the melt.
S&R has calculated that it will recover some 1,125 tons of aluminum annually. In addition, the consumption of salt will be reduced by 2,750 tons, for a total reduction of 3,875 tons of material previously disposed.
Payback
Although the company's cost analysis is proprietary information, considering only payback of the loan it received from the Indiana Department of Commerce--$485,250--plus company invested costs, S&R estimates a payback of less than 2 years. This is based on reduced landfill tipping fees and increased revenue from the sale of additional recovered aluminum.
Additional benefits
