Hammerer Aluminium Industries (HAI) recently installed a modern briquetting press for the efficient recycling of aluminum chips at its headquarters in Ranshofen, Upper Austria. The new briquetting press for aluminum chips will further increase the recycling rate at the site, continuing the company’s quest to be ever more sustainable.
Recycling Process Scrap
The manufacture of aluminum products generates production waste and aluminum chips, which are consistently collected at HAI in Ranshofen and fed back into the production cycle in the casting department.
“The proportion of sawing and milling chips in our production is constantly increasing,” said Dr. Markus Schober, chief operations officer at HAI. “In recent years, we have invested heavily in production technologies so that our customers receive finished products and not just a standard profile that they have to process themselves. That’s why recycling our own production waste is an important issue that also guarantees the absolute purity of the alloy.”
With an ambitious sustainability strategy, HAI can boast impressive figures: By using around 80 percent secondary aluminum as well as primary aluminum, which is produced entirely with electricity from renewable energy sources, the CO2 footprint of the products supplied by HAI is well below the European average and a fraction of the global average.
Chip Briquettes—An Effective Recycling Method
Melting down loose aluminum chips results in high oxidation losses during storage and melting, so HAI is increasingly relying on briquetting the chips produced. Aluminum chip briquettes can be stored without loss and used almost indefinitely in Ranshofen’s melting units. The material yield increases by around 8 percent compared to melting down loose chips. Another advantage is that the briquettes are largely free of cooling lubricants. This means that they produce hardly any waste gas in the melting furnace.
The new RUF 90/3900/120 briquette press at the Ranshofen site is currently working eight to ten hours a day, five days a week, and will produce around 1,000 to 1,500 tonnes of chip briquettes in its first year of operation. This figure impressively emphasizes the effects of an ambitious sustainability strategy that aims for a closed cycle.
How it Works
The chips are collected at all saws and machining centers at HAI in Ranshofen and transported to the briquette press by forklift, where they are tipped into the collection hopper. The press starts automatically when there are enough chips in the hopper. The finished chip briquettes land in a collection container via two discharge rails. The briquettes are then transported to the foundry for remelting, completing a circular process.
About the HAI Group
Hammerer Aluminium Industries employs 1,900 people. Founded in 2007, the company is headquartered in Ranshofen, Upper Austria, and has eight other locations in Germany, Romania, Poland and South Korea. HAI can look back on a real success story. It combines the dynamism and innovative spirit of a young company with the experience of a traditional business. In 2024, HAI achieved a turnover of 823 million euros in the three production areas of casting (foundry), extrusion (extrusion) and processing (mechanical processing). The HAI Group’s products can be found in the construction sector as well as in automotive and transportation technology, electrical engineering and mechanical and plant engineering.