Construction has started on a multi-chamber melting furnace and ancillary equipment that will recycle 50kt/y of aluminium scrap to feed the rolling mills of Alunorf aluminium rolling complex.
Alunorf is a joint venture of Novelis and Norsk Hydro and is based near Neuss, Germany.
The recycling centre will process aluminium scrap from Novelis plants as well as from the manufacturing facilities of customers across Europe.
It is the second phase of a recycling expansion project at Alunorf that began in 2009 with the construction of a similar recycling facility funded by Norsk Hydro. The capacity of the integrated recycling operations will be 100kt/y when the facility comes on-stream in late 2011.
Tadeu Nardocci, president of Novelis Europe said the centre would complement its dedicated aluminium can recycling operation in Warrington, UK.
Recycling aluminium uses only 5% of the energy required to make the metal from raw materials and avoids 95% of the greenhouse gases associated with primary production.