Key to recycling

For almost a century, commercial aluminum materials have been developed and optimized for high performance in specific applications within strict chemical confines of industrially established alloy classes. The requirements associated with sustainable lightweighting concepts call for new strategies that offer a broader property portfolio with a better trade-off between formability, achievable strength and recyclability.

Such alloys would be key for circumventing today's common multi-material mixes and facilitate the recycling of complex products such as automobiles.

Tear down established boundaries

A team of researchers led by Univ. Prof. Dr. Stefan Pogatscher from the Department of Nonferrous Metallurgy at the University of Leoben has been trying to tear down these established boundaries between classes of aluminum alloys for several years. Pioneering work has been done in this regard, so that it has now been possible to further establish this new field of research in a review article in the prestigious journal "Progress in Materials Science".

"The focus of our work is on combining material properties of the conventional alloy classes 2xxx, 5xxx and 7xxx into a single superior material. Recent research data provides clear indications of good forming performance combined with high age-hardening potential - characteristics that are usually difficult to combine. In addition, other surprising properties show to be important for applications in space technology," explains Dr. Lukas Stemper, PostDoc at the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Advanced Aluminum Alloys. These new materials – termed as "crossover alloys" – are now being presented by the researchers at Montanuniversität as a new aluminum classification that is capable of combining the benefits of several commercial alloy classes.

In the first place

The journal Progress in Materials Science (IF 39.58) is ranked first in materials science in Scopus. Only authoritative reviews of recent advances in the science of materials and their exploitation in engineering and other applications are published. Authors must be identified as leaders in their respective field. The review article "On the potential of aluminum crossover alloys" is the first article in the new "snapshot review" category, which addresses very young fields.

Informationen zur Veröffentlichung: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmatsci.2021.100873

Further Information:

Prof. Dr. Stefan Pogatscher
Chair of Nonferrous Metallurgy - Montanuniversität Leoben
Tel.: 03842 402 5228
Mobil: 0664 2418337
E-Mail: stefan.pogatscher(at)unileoben.ac.at

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