Atlanta-based aluminum producer Novelis Inc. has announced a strategic partnership with Sortera Alloys Inc. of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Sortera is a scrap metal sorting and recycling company that was spun out from the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) project in the U.S. Department of Energy, which seeks to advance high-potential, high-impact energy technologies that are too early for private-sector investment. The company has developed and patented sorting technology that uses artificial intelligence- (AI-) based sensor sorters to upgrade shredded nonferrous scrap feedstock streams and remove unwanted contaminants.

Novelis says it will use Sortera's advanced sorting technologies, including data analytics and advanced sensors, to recycle and reuse more automotive postproduction and postconsumer scrap.

Using Sortera’s technology, Novelis says it will be able to effectively separate mixed automotive scrap into individual alloys and recycle them back into the same product, allowing the aluminum producer to meet original equipment makers' needs for performance, durability, safety and design.

"Our partnership with Sortera will allow Novelis to continue to increase the amount of recycled content in our automotive alloys and subsequently reduce our carbon footprint," says Derek Prichett, senior vice president, Corporate Development, at Novelis, in a news release about the partnership. "It also aligns with our goal of becoming a fully circular business, as we will be able to keep more automotive aluminum in our supply chain and redirect it back into the same products."

The partnership supports Novelis' sustainability goals to reduce its carbon footprint by 30 percent by 2026 and to be carbon neutral by 2050 or sooner. Using recycled aluminum as input material requires approximately 5 percent of the energy used to make primary aluminum, thus avoiding approximately 95 percent of the carbon emissions associated with production, the company says.

Earlier this year, Novelis announced that it would invest $365 million in a highly advanced recycling center in Guthrie, Kentucky, that will be able to cast 240,000 tons of sheet ingot for its automotive customers per year. The company says the facility is expected to reduce its carbon emissions by more than 1 million tons annually and to add approximately 140 jobs.

Beatriz Landa, vice president of metal procurement and recycling for Novelis North America, told Recycling Today earlier this year that the investment to produce its own recycled-content automotive aluminum ingots will allow Novelis to become “more sustainable and more independent in the market.”

"We are thrilled to work with Novelis, the global leader in sustainable aluminum solutions," says Michael Siemer, CEO, Sortera Alloys. "Together with existing investors like Chrysalix and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and now Novelis, we are poised to disrupt the global aluminum recycling space while cutting global emissions and driving a more sustainable industry."

Sortera recently received $10 million in funding led by Assembly Ventures, with additional funding from Breakthrough Energy Ventures and aluminum producer Novelis. In that announcement, Sortera referred to “a significant partnership with Novelis that will see Sortera deliver high-quality, recycled alloy derived from automotive scrap to Novelis.” However, Sortera declined to comment further on the partnership at that time, indicating that a separate announcement would be made.

Recycling Today has reached out to Novelis and Sortera for more information on the partnership.  

Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) says its board of directors has authorized construction and operation of a 650,000-metric-ton recycled aluminum flat-roll mill and two supporting satellite recycled aluminum slab centers. The company will invest an estimated $2.2 billion in the three facilities, with commercial production planned to begin in the first quarter of 2025. The project will be funded with available cash and cash flow from operations, SDI notes in a news release about the investment.

Founded in 1993, Fort Wayne, Indiana-based SDI is among the largest and most diversified U.S. steel producers and metals recyclers. SDI produces steel with fewer carbon emissions using electric arc furnace technology (EAF) with recycled ferrous scrap as the primary input. The company says it plans to bring the steel minimill culture and related operating efficiency to the flat-rolled aluminum industry.

This is not SDI’s first venture into nonferrous metal production. In 2012, the company partnered with Spanish company La Farga Group to establish SDI La Farga LLC, which produces copper wire rod from recycled copper at its plant in New Haven, Indiana. With the company's purchase of OmniSource Corp., its scrap recycling division, in 2007, it also acquired Superior Aluminum Alloys, New Haven, which OmniSource established in 1997. 

SDI says its steel customers are significant consumers and processors of aluminum flat-rolled products and seek the company’s high-quality, sustainable, customer-centric approach within the flat-rolled aluminum market.

“We are incredibly excited to announce this meaningful growth opportunity, which is aligned with our existing business and operational expertise,” says Mark D. Millett, chairman, president and chief executive officer at SDI. “We have intentionally grown with our customers’ needs, providing efficient sustainable supply chain solutions for the highest quality products. Thus far, this has primarily been achieved within the carbon steel industry—however, a significant number of our carbon flat-rolled steel customers are also consumers and processors of aluminum flat-rolled products. Today, we are announcing our plans to broaden our ability to serve our existing and new customers by adding high-quality, low-carbon flat-rolled aluminum to our product portfolio. We are also excited to further diversify our end markets with plans to supply the sustainable beverage can industry.”

Millett adds, “We believe our unique performance-based operating culture, coupled with our considerable experience in successfully constructing and operating cost-effective, highly profitable carbon flat-rolled steel mills, positions us exceptionally well to execute this strategic opportunity in an adjacent metal space and to deliver strong long-term value creation.”

Its planned aluminum flat-rolled mill will use what SDI describes as “a significant amount” of aluminum scrap, making it a complementary extension of SDI’s metals recycling platform, which primarily operates under the name OmniSource and ranked as the largest nonferrous metal recycler with auto shredding operations in North America on Recycling Today’s 2021 list. SDI says its metals recycling platform is expected to supply 100 percent of the aluminum scrap needed for rolling mill and aluminum slab operations.

The company estimates the project will generate between $650 million and $700 million of annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) on a through-cycle basis.

SDI says the North American flat-rolled aluminum industry has a supply deficit estimated at more than 2 million metric tons in large part because of growing demand from the automotive and beverage can industries. This deficit is being addressed through imports of higher-cost aluminum flat-rolled products, which exceeded 25 percent of North American consumption in 2021, the company adds.

SDI says it plans to locate the $1.9 billion aluminum flat-rolled mill in the southeastern U.S. and that the equipment contract has been awarded to SMS Group. The mill’s product offering will be supported by various value-added finishing lines, including CASH (continuous annealing solutions heat treating) lines, continuous coating and various slitting and packaging operations. The rolling mill is expected to begin operations in the first quarter 2025.

The company says it plans to use a significant amount of pre- and postconsumer aluminum scrap in its production process. SDI, which is partnering with Unity Aluminum Inc. in a joint venture, will own more than 94 percent of the rolling mill facility. Ashland, Kentucky-based Unity’s employees provide significant aluminum industry operating expertise to the project, SDI says, complementing its own proven extensive construction and operating talent.

SDI Investor Relations Manager Tricia Meyers tells Recycling Today, "Steel Dynamics chose to structure this rolling mill as a joint venture, with Unity Aluminum having a 5.6 percent equity stake as their employees provide significant aluminum industry operating expertise to the project, complementing Steel Dynamics’ own proven extensive construction and operating talent." 

Barry Schneider, SDI’s senior vice president of the Flat Roll Group, sits on Unity’s board.  

She continues, "We have not yet selected a site. Steel Dynamics expects to benefit from compelling incentives from the state and local governments keen to bring the project to their communities and based on customer locations and access to aluminum scrap and other raw materials, we plan to locate the rolling mill in the southeastern United States." 

At full capacity, SDI’s aluminum rolling mill will require approximately 900,000 metric tons of annual aluminum slab supply, according to the company. The rolling mill likely will supply approximately 50 percent of its recycled aluminum slab requirements on-site, with the remaining amount to be provided by the construction and operation of two additional satellite recycled aluminum slab centers: one to be located in the southwestern U.S. and the other in northcentral Mexico. The two facilities are expected to cost approximately $350 million in aggregate, with the Mexico facility expected to begin operations in 2024 and the U.S. facility by the end of 2025, SDI says. The company will own 100 percent of the satellite facilities.

The aluminum scrap for the Mexican slab mill likely will be supplied by companies SDI recently acquired in Mexico to help secure prime scrap for its Sinton, Texas, EAF steel mill. Earlier this year, SDI bought Roca Acero S.A. de C.V., which operates four scrap processing facilities, including at least one with an auto shredder. SDI calls the facilities “strategically positioned near high-volume industrial scrap sources located throughout central and northern Mexico.”

In 2020, the company purchased Zimmer S.A. de C.V. of Monterrey, Mexico, which operates a ferrous and nonferrous scrap metals recycling business. The company’s primary operations include six scrap processing facilities strategically positioned near high-volume industrial scrap sources throughout central and northern Mexico. The company also operates several third-party scrap processing locations.

Meyers says OmniSource will continue to serve its customers by supplying aluminum scrap and has a strategic plan to increase its aluminum volumes. She says that plan includes levering the scrap supply in the Southwest U.S. and northcentral Mexico, adding that Mexico has excess aluminum scrap supply. It also will involve "further expanding our industrial scrap management program, targeting large aluminum industrial companies that would benefit from having a scrap management program, and upgrading secondary aluminum scrap that is currently available through new sorting technologies, some of this aluminum scrap is currently being exported to other countries to be sorted," Meyers says.

SDI says the investment in aluminum production diversifies its end-market exposure by serving the growing North American beverage can industry with its counter-cyclical characteristics. Consistent with its vision for its Sinton mill, SDI says it plans to invite customers to locate facilities on-site with the rolling mill to further enhance customer cost efficiencies, providing a “closed loop” aluminum coil-to-scrap sourcing opportunity.

*This article was updated July 20, 2022, to include comments from SDI's Tricia Meyers and Aug. 4 to add the mention of Superior Aluminum Alloys. 

The world’s product and packaging designers are busy introducing new items that eventually will be discarded for recycling. To Germany-based shredding equipment manufacturer Vecoplan AG, that circumstance provides a reason to offer new varieties of shredders.

At the same time, the equipment maker says recycling plant operators can be wary of complications that can add to training or component replacement costs.

Thus, Vecoplan says it has “taken a fresh look” at its shredding machines and standardized the interfaces. Users also now can take advantage of a modular system that will handle a wide range of materials, the company adds.

Manufacturers of shredding equipment have long had to deal with special customer requirements in the recycling sector. That provides a reason, according to Vecoplan, to modify components such as rotors, cutting tips, counter knives and screens to match a given task.

These choices and the relevant combinations are critical to the performance and quality of the shredding process, Vecoplan states. One user may have to process especially tough materials while another might require electric motors that comply with specific standards in its operating region.

The design effort for such diverse solutions can be considerable, and manufacturers must keep an increasing number of different parts in stock in order to be prepared, the company adds.

In response, Vecoplan says it has modified its product architecture and established different system platforms depending on the application and size. It has also classified separate modules according to their specific function.

The interfaces used by operators, though, are standardized and the platforms remain unchanged, says the firm. “Application engineers can put together suitable products according to each customer’s needs, much in the way vehicle manufacturers use a configurator,” states Vecoplan.

A shredder buyer or operator can select appropriate modules for the screen, the rotor and the drive. Each module is available in different variants and can be combined as needed with other assemblies, according to Vecoplan.

Components such as cutting tools, counter knives, screens and rotors have been organized in a grid with uniform module sizes. The Vecoplan grid allows shredders to vary in width by small increments from 800 millimeters to more than 3,200 millimeters (31 inches to 10.5 feet).

Vecoplan debuted its modular system on its VIZ shredder line at a trade fair in Germany in 2019. It says it is extending the principle to its entire range of shredding machines and plans to present several platforms in the months ahead. The company also is planning additions at the module level to make its shredders more versatile for buyers to be “perfectly matched to their needs.”

“A wide range of tool sizes and types can be mapped within this grid without the need to change the designs of adjoining components,” says Vecoplan, which also is applying a similar grid idea to other components such as drives.

Thanks to this grid principle, Vecoplan can design custom solutions within the spectrum while at the same time maintaining a manageable degree of complexity, the company says. “There is no need to start from scratch with the design, and no time-consuming special solution is necessary."

When a user decides to purchase a new machine adapted to its requirements, Vecoplan can tailor a shredder faster and manufacture it immediately, claims the company. As the grid concept takes hold, customers also benefit from even faster parts availability thanks to streamlined warehousing, adds Vecoplan.

Retrofitting remains an option for “the various modules,” according to Vecoplan, allowing the machine’s functionality to be adapted to changing requirements.

The Washington-based American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) says in the week ending July 16, 2022, steel production in the United States checked in at 1.74 million tons at a capability utilization (mill capacity) rate of 78.9 percent.

The weekly figure is down 0.6 percent from the previous week ending July 9, 2022, when production was 1.75 million tons and the rate of capability utilization was 79.3 percent.

One year ago, in the week ending July 16, 2021, output was 1.86 million tons, representing a 6.7 percent decrease year on year. The mill capacity rate one year ago was 84.4 percent.

Year-to-date steel production in the U.S. through July 16, 2022, stands at 49.35 million tons, which is down 2.5 percent from the 50.62 million tons made during the same period last year.

The mill capacity rate year to date, at 80.4 percent, is not greatly changed from last year’s 80.1 percent rate through July 16, 2021.

The stagnant steel situation in the U.S. will not help the price of ferrous scrap, which already is suffering from a lack of export market demand. Pricing service Argus has calculated the No. 1 busheling grade as having a $480 per ton national average price in the early July buying period. That means its value dropped a whopping $150 per ton, or nearly 24 percent, in just 30 days.