The US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in collaboration with mobility technology company Magna, developed a manufacturing process that reduces more than 50% of the embodied energy and more than 90% of the carbon dioxide emissions used for collecting and transforming scrap aluminum into new vehicle parts.

In a media statement, the organizations said the patented Shear Assisted Processing and Extrusion (ShAPE) process collects scrap bits and leftover aluminum trimmings from automotive manufacturing and transforms it directly into suitable material for new car parts. It is also being scaled to make lightweight aluminum parts for EVs.

The most recent advancement, described in detail in a Manufacturing Letters research article, eliminates the need to add newly mined aluminum to the material before using it for new parts. By reducing the cost of recycling aluminum, manufacturers may be able to reduce the overall cost of aluminum components, better enabling them to replace steel.

“We showed that aluminum parts formed with the ShAPE process meet automotive industry standards for strength and energy absorption,” lead researcher Scott Whalen said. “The key is that the ShAPE process breaks up metal impurities in the scrap without requiring an energy-intensive heat treatment step. This alone saves considerable time and introduces new efficiencies.”

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