Aluminium may be produced by extracting the ore (bauxite) or by recasting recycled scrap. The metal processing methods required to produce semi-finished and finished products are different.
The main ones are casting (a process required to produce wire rods for further processing), die casting (in aluminium foundries, aluminium is melted and cast in suitable moulds), lamination, extrusion, drawing and forging.
These complex processes require high precision and are generally followed by other mechanical processes such as cutting, grinding and bending, besides the other surface treatments including oxidisation and coating.
Aluminium production and processing require high amounts of energy, especially electrical power: indeed, the consumption of this specific industry is higher than that of any other metal production (the world average being 15 MWh/t, against 1 MWh/t for steel), which heavily affects production costs.
Since 2013 the industry has been part of the EU Emission Trading Scheme within the framework of climate change management policies, which introduces charges for energy-intensive European industries for the purchase of CO2 emission allowances.
The adoption of efficient technologies reduces emissions, thus reducing the money spent to purchase allowances.
And there’s more: in foundries, compressors must fulfil particular requirements in order to operate in challenging conditions, mainly due to high temperature (which can reach 90°C at the factory ceiling), the presence of dust, particulate and corrosive chemicals, as well as the presence of an intense magnetic field which may disrupt the operation of electronic devices.
The special composition of Mattei compressors, developed after years of experience in the industry, offer very interesting features for the aluminium industries:
