Dirt, Rocks & Sand

Problems caused by dirt, rocks & sand:

Present a health and safety risk.
These abrasive materials damage processing equipment, leading to increased plant maintenance costs. Excessive dust produced from dirt within cans and bales can be counter-productive to the efforts being made to improve working conditions.
These contaminants contain calcium, sodium and silicon oxides which react with the molten aluminium and need to be removed using expensive reagents or pure aluminium to return the metal to the desired specification. This is a time-consuming and costly process.
1kg of dirt produces 2kg of dross in the furnace. The dross floats on the surface of the molten metal and has to be removed. Dross contains 50% aluminium. It is possible to recover some aluminium from dross, but it is a costly process and valuable metal can be lost.

How to avoid contamination from dirt, rocks & sand