Aluminium is a fundamental material across a wide range of industries, with the transportation, construction, and packaging sectors being some of the largest consumers. Its unique properties make it indispensable in applications where lightweight, strength, and durability are paramount. Besides the dedicated characteristics of the sectors-related alloy types, another key importance of aluminium is that recycling aluminium means 95% energy saving compared to the primary production. Further important factor is the infinite recyclability of aluminium, which not only helps but obliges the industry players to recycle it.
The aluminium industry uses a vast array of alloys, each with unique chemical compositions tailored for specific properties and applications. 
As a result, modern recycling technologies face the challenge of sorting and processing these alloys to maintain their integrity and ensure the recycled material meets the required specifications.

Advanced sorting technologies are increasingly used to identify and separate different aluminum alloys before they are melted down.

Today, only the LIBS-based sensor sorters are capable of processing high-purity sorted fractions at the industrially essential, high throughput rate. The growing demand for high purity sorted fractions from mixed aluminium scrap, has initiated more vendors to develop and appear on the market with their LIBS-based sensor sorters. 

We, Austin AI Europe Ltd. are the official agent of Austin AI, Inc. (Austin/Texas, USA), the inventor and manufacturer of the Austin AI and Hydro Aluminium jointly patented-technology based, LIBS sensor sorter. The Austin AI LIBS is known for its unique design, which means special advantages when considering real-life, occasionally harsh operational conditions and strict processors’ expectations.

A few of its key features are as follows:

• free fall design, combined with vibratory feeders that helps to minimize overlapping pieces reaching the analytical channel,
• fixed focus/fixed positioned LIBS modules to achieve a faster-analyzing rate and avoid potential failures due to continuous movement of the sensors,
• high-power laser to etch down to the base metal through most of the coatings,
• very low detection limits of the alloying elements, practically <0.1% of each,
• specific applications, several other than the 5xxx/6xxx,
• freely configurable sortation setting, according to the’ furnace required’ chemical composition,
• besides aluminium alloys, different magnesium alloys can also be sorted.

Thanks to such a unique design and features of the Austin AI LIBS sorter systems, in the first half of this year, Austin AI Europe was acknowledged with four orders, each of them is about a 6-Lane/6-Sensor configured system. We are grateful to all our customers who thoroughly tested more alternative LIBS systems available today, and after their deep survey, they decided to choose ours.
Together with these latest ones, nearly 30 Austin AI LIBS systems are installed worldwide - USA, India, Japan and several countries in Europe. More to come.

Here, we can proudly mention, that some of our users already operate more systems at their plant. Others consider buying their second. More of them, send the LIBS sorted fractions directly to their furnace - thanks to ~100% purity of the extracted fractions.

LIBS is a new technique in the recycling industry that needs time to establish its recognition as the industrial equivalent of the laboratory standard, the arc-spark. We support and aim to expand the application of LIBS among light metal industrial players. Producing high-purity (~100%), ready-to-melt alloy fractions from mixed scrap (such as shredded Zorba or its down-sorted mixed aluminum fractions) saves time, fuel, energy, and reasonable costs for the companies.

Aluminium recycling and scrap recovery are considered a sustainable practice that dominantly contributes to decarbonization. We are fully dedicated to green aluminium production and are excited to invite everyone to our testing facilities. We will provide detailed information on the benefits of the LIBS sensor sorting technology and introduce the unique design of the Austin AI LIBS system. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jOekb8OqQA

Austin AI Europe Ltd is responsible for Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa. Thanks to our expansive success we are establishing local sales and service partners for the highest quality customer support.