MQP kicks off 2022 with a 40% higher efficiency grain refiner

While the pandemic isn’t over, I believe we are moving into a more positive era. The DS&P 500 average is up by 26.9% on last year and we are seeing a real uptick in customer activity. Wind the clock back a year and while plants were still operational, many technical and managerial staff were furloughed and product trials to improve process efficiencies were put on the backburner.

Like others in our boat, we felt the impact of this, but towards the end of the year, we started seeing renewed interest. Three of the major groups who are keen to start exploring ways to reduce costs and improve quality again have started trialling our high-efficiency Optifine grain refiner, which looks positive. Optifine has been used to successfully cast over 16 million tonnes of aluminium since 2010 and we should build on this significantly in 2022.

Where we were able to invest our efforts in 2021 was in the continuation of our work into improving the efficiency of Optifine, which had to be put on hold in March 2020 with the outbreak of the pandemic. One of the key findings of our work at BCAST at Brunel University London was the devastating effects of zirconium in the production of aluminium alloys. To put it into context, zirconium is increasingly being added to melts to produce aluminium alloys that provide unique properties such as high tensile strength - typically higher than 400MPa (UTS) – together with enhanced recyclability, machinability and corrosion resistance. However, our research showed that zirconium has a poisoning effect on grain refiner and using state-of-the-art electron microscopy, we saw a need for an ultra-potent 5:1 grain refiner to overcome the Zr poisoning effect.

This ground-breaking research in 2021 led to the development of our Optifine 5:1 125 grain refiner, which has 85% more active nuclei than a low-efficiency grain refiner and delivers an acceptable grain size, 150µm, at an addition rate of 1kg/t compared to the >4kg/t required when using standard grain refiner when casting.

Ultimately, it helps casthouses successfully cast high strength zirconium containing 6000 and 7000 alloys for automotive without the zirconium ‘poisoning’ problem.

At the end of 2021, we made another breakthrough and established the methodology to boost Optifine 5:1 125’s efficiency rate up to 85% higher than standard grain refiner, the only grain refiner on the market to deliver this impressive rate. Delivering an unprecedented 40% higher efficiency and performance than the closest competitor on the market, using Optifine 5:1 125 also offers 20% more cost savings, welcome news for plants getting back to business. It is a premium product, but there is a rapid rate of return and its high efficiency makes it appealing to companies striving to meet the COP26 agenda.

Many of the industry challenges of last year appear to have abated. For one, government pressure on China to look at its energy production led to a shortage in raw materials such as magnesium, but the major players have managed to rejig their supply chain and, hopefully, these problems are sorted as we move into 2022.

Over the coming year, we will be looking to expand our range of solutions to make the overall production of aluminium alloys much more efficient, including the launch of our new and improved Optifeeder, which accurately measures the length of rods going through a system and immediately alerts operators when they need to change the coil.

Typically, if a casthouse is adding 1kg/t of standard grain refiner, the addition of Optifine could be as low as 0.2kg/t and some rod feeders will not run at such low speeds. Our Optifeeder is designed to deliver grain refiner rods at speeds from as low as 4cm/min, ensuring grain refiner is constantly added and that no melt is left un-grain refined. This is invaluable in limiting waste and we look forward to revealing more on this in the near future.