Aluminium is by far the most produced non-ferrous metal in the world. Its low density leads to a wide range of applications, e.g. in light weight vehicles. However the primary production is very energy intensive and leads to a huge amount of residues and greenhouse gases. Recycling is a method to reduce these environmental impacts. As the demand for cast alloys in the automotive sector is high today, scrap streams from end-of-live vehicles (ELV) are mostly downcycled. The product of this process is in most cases a cast alloy which is mainly used in the internal combustion engine. As the share of electric vehicles rises the market for these secondary cast alloys will shrink which leads to a surplus of scraps that cannot be recycled economically.

This work presents a way to enhance the share of secondary wrought alloys by escaping the established scheme of aluminium alloys. Three different vehicle types are considered: an average car built in the EU, a pickup truck oriented on the Ford F150 and a representative for the electric mobility oriented on the Tesla Model 3. Three different dismantling scenarios were applied from “no dismantling” to “current dismantling” to “theoretical dismantling”. In the calculations of possible alloys, only a mixture of the aluminium alloys was considered further contaminations were neglected. When available data was taken from literature for the other data an “educated guess” was applied. Also thermodynamic simulations with FactSage were performed.

Each alloy was produced in laboratory scale and successfully hot and cold rolled. Investigations in the scanning electron microscope showed accumulations of iron, silicon, magnesium and manganese at the grain boundaries and a random distribution for zinc in all samples. For copper both distribution scenarios appeared. Further examinations included tensile tests in solution annealed and artificial aged state and hardness tests during natural ageing. The results showed that it is possible to produce interesting alloy compositions with promising properties from end-of-life vehicles.