With the aim of establishing an optimized process chain, particularly for high-strength automotive structural parts using recycled aluminum, well-known companies from the entire supply chain have joined forces and launched the "Green-Al-Light" project, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. The focus is on the increased use of end-of-life scrap from the automotive sector. First of all, these scraps are to be separated as purely as possible by means of a highly modern sorting technology at cleansort GmbH and Clean-Lasersysteme GmbH. Adapted alloys from TRIMET Aluminum and casting and forging technologies from Otto Fuchs KG will be used to develop overall CO₂-optimized and cost-efficient manufacturing processes – and finally the manufactured components will be validated and used by the vehicle manufacturer Audi AG. FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg accompanies the processes with highly developed testing and measurement technology.

The goal can only be achieved by taking a holistic view of all process steps and their interactions, in close networking of all those involved. State-of-the-art digitization technologies are used for this purpose, which are lead-developed and provided by Matplus GmbH. "By modeling material properties as well as energy and material flows, we support the entire process chain. In addition, we are developing specialized evaluation tools for technical project data for this purpose," explains Dr. Bernd Koch, project manager at Matplus.

For more information on the joint project, visit www.green-al-light.de