Recycling Technology of Aluminum UBC To Can Body Sheets

The materials processing factors such as remelting and casting, heat treatment and microstructure, sheet rolling and can body forming in the aluminum can-to-can recycling procedure have been investigated. Aluminum used beverage can(UBC) was remelted together with virgin aluminum. The ceramic filter was used during casting to remove large impurities. As-cast microstructure was composed of large intermetallic compound (mainly $\beta$ -phase) distributed in the aluminum matrix. By heat treatment, $\beta$ -phase was transformed to $\alpha$ -phase which was also formed from $Mg_2$Si particles. The heat treated ingots were hot-rolled at 48$0^{\circ}C$ and cold-rolled to thin sheets. Can making from this thin sheets was successful and earing was measured after can making. There was a critical cold reduction rate for minimum earing. Some cracks were initiated from the impurity particles which was not removed during filtering.