Abstract: Climate change and the growing scarcity of natural resources make it imperative to develop new technologies that reduce both resource consumption and waste generation in aluminium treatment processes. The most sustainable strategy to achieve this goal is the reuse or purification of waste into raw materials or natural resources that can be reused into surface treatment processes.

Among all the resources on the planet, water is arguably the most valuable. Anodising and powder coating processes in the aluminium industry consume large amounts of water, making it crucial to minimise their environmental impact by enabling water reuse. This presentation will showcase various innovative solutions that make it possible to reuse up to 100% of the water employed in anodising and powder coating plants.

Another process in need of more sustainable solutions within the aluminium industry is the cleaning of dies in extrusion plants, which generates large quantities of hazardous and highly corrosive waste. The limited availability of caustic soda as a raw material, along with the high cost of managing spent baths and the environmental impact of their treatment, highlights the need for efficient recovery and recycling of caustic soda from spent baths. The presentation will discuss the different technologies evaluated at ALSAN’s R&D laboratory for this purpose, outlining their advantages and limitations, and describing the selected process for industrial implementation.