Fonderie Pandolfo in Italy ordered a twin-chamber melting furnace for the recycling of contaminated aluminum scrap. The new furnace will double the company’s production rate, enabling it to satisfy continuous market requests. The TCF® melting furnace will be delivered and installed by Tenova LOI Thermprocess in Germany.
Fonderie Pandolfo was founded in 2009 as a modern casthouse primarily for the production of aluminum billet for the Pandolfo Alluminio extrusion operations. With a workforce of over 300 people, the casting operation is able to recycling 40,000 tonnes of scrap material per year. The company already operates a set of TCF melting and casting furnaces from Tenova LOI (supplied in 2008), enabling it to produce over 60,000 tons of refined and recycled aluminum.
The new TCF, which has been designed for aluminum scrap recycling, will have a capacity of 65,000 tons per year. In order to cover a broad range of scrap with various contamination levels, the furnace combines pre-treatment and melting in one. Scrap is loaded into the charging machine and put onto the dry hearth of the scrap chamber, where the processing starts with preheating, drying and pyrolysing. The volatile organic contents (VOCs) produced during this process are combusted completely in the furnace heating chamber in order to decrease the overall energy consumption and meet strict environmental regulations. The furnace will be supplied with a sophisticated automation technology, with the aim of streamlining the charging process to further increase efficiency.
Homogeneous temperature and alloy composition is provided by a liquid metal pump. In this way, the TCF process provides efficient melting with limited dross formation.
During its operation, the central regenerative (CCR) burner quenches the flue gas in order to avoid recombination of harmful components. It then recovers the heat from flue gas by heating up the combustion air in front of the burners.
The scope of supply will also include a state-of-the-art flue gas treatment plant.
The TCF is expected to go into operation at the end of 2019.