Aluminum circularity by tolerant materials design and rethinking of material flow be IT-based system approach (ALCIRCUIT)

Research Project, 2025 – 2028

The scope of creating tolerant alloys that can allow wide chemical composition and certainimpurity content, while still providing performance with respect to mechanical, thermal andcorrosion behaviour, is one of the prime contributors to realize full material circularity. It can beviewed as a necessary means to facilitate use of recycled scrap, etc. The use of aluminium viadifferent advanced casting technology and additive manufacturing is growing. Critical to thisis the use of secondary aluminium. Hence, bringing tolerant material solutions in place that canfit both casting and additive manufacturing is of strategic and fundamental importance. Thiswould provide the ultimate solution for circularity. In Sweden, there is a great chance to createsustainable value chains with full circularity, as well as the recycling industry. Even if thetechnical solutions are crucial, it is important to align these with a holistic approach involvingcoupling with cost modelling that incorporates sustainability criteria. We plan to act along fourlines of development, Analytics-supported material value chain analysis, combining physics-based laws with artificial intelligence (AI) supported analytics to arrive at sustainability andcost assessment criteria for initial materials and compositional design; In-depth theoryapproaches, using thermodynamics-based modelling and basic material-structure-propertyunderstanding to set the critical limits of alloy composition, Rapid testing and evaluation ofpromising material with high-throughput strategies and cost modelling and sustainabilityassessment along with these developments. The partners (Chalmers, JU, LU) will share theirexpertise and we will organize the work via a common post-doc, to provide unique and efficientwork, with the target to present aluminium alloy(s) suitable for circularity.