Piotr Skarbinski earned an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Zielona Góra, specialising in precision and biomedical instruments. His professional career began in 1988 with Elterma as a project engineer. He joined SECO/WARWICK in 1990 as a project engineer for atmosphere furnaces and was promoted to Atmosphere Furnace Team Leader in 1995. In addition to these responsibilities, he worked with both the Aluminum Process and Incinerator product groups. In 2000, he assumed responsibility as Director of Europe's Controlled Atmosphere Brazing (CAB) Team. He became the CAB Global Product Leader in 2006, and since 2014, he has served as a Vice President of the CAB and Aluminium Process business segment at SECO/WARWICK S.A.

AL Circle: How does SECO/WARWICK's vision align with the evolving needs of the aluminium flat-rolled sector?

Piotr Skarbinski: Since the middle of the last century, our parent company, known under the then name SUNBEAM EQUIPMENT CORP., was one of the main American suppliers of furnaces for melting and heat treatment of aluminium alloys. One of the solutions offered at that time was a furnace for annealing rolls of mass-flow type tape and foil. This technology is still used in foil annealing. At the end of the 20th century, jet heating technology was developed for annealing rolls from tape, which uses nozzle systems for heating the rolls front surface. In this case, heat transfer occurs from the front surfaces along the rolls individual layers, which causes much faster roll heating and cooling. Thanks to this, the furnace has greater efficiency and lower energy consumption (due to shorter process time) and heat emission (through the furnace housing). SECO/WARWICK also developed this technology by purchasing a ready-made patented solution known as Vortex at the turn of the century.