The consortium is a well balanced mix of SME partners with key roles in the recycling industry, from the management of the aluminium fraction in urban solid waste to the manufacturers of aluminium parts. To cover the technical research do be performed throughout the project, three top level research partners, with complementary expertise and a previous tracking record of successful partnerships, will carry out a big part of the scientific development.
And to advise and assess, three industrial partners are also on board, an aluminium foundry (FOMT) and FIAT group, one the most important car manufactures in Europe represented by its Research Centre (CRF). Also Innoval, part of Danieli group, will collaborate with the consortium. It shows a clear expression of interest from the European industry about the possibilities of this novel technology, sharing the end user role with Idalsa.
The project aims to cover not only the casting aspects of the recycling process, but the whole life cycle of the aluminium. This life cycle comprises from the recovery in the MBT plant (Mechanic Biological Treatment) to the manufacturing and testing of the actual aluminium parts for automotive sector. For doing so, the project comprises a wide range of skills and synergies in a well-organized structure. Upstream, Suldouro in Portugal is company which manages the Municipal Solid Waste in a half a million people area which comprises Vila Nova de Gaia and Santa Maria de Feira. They also manage their own MBT plant, from where they separate a fraction of Al from diverse origin. This Al will be used as one of our sources of scrap. Suldouro will also provide information about the material fraction they recover, the composition and origin, which will help the consortium during the optimization of the recycling parameters.