Sorting out the opportunities

It’s an exciting time in the nonferrous space as companies continue to invest in domestic melting capacity designed to consume red metal and aluminum scrap. To help feed those investments on the aluminum side, we’ve seen a number of companies invest in sorting capacity that will enable them to add value to lower grades of scrap or sort by alloy type. In some cases, these investments involve partnerships with scrap consumers.

Atlanta-based aluminum rolling company Novelis, which is building a recycling center in Guthrie, Kentucky, with 240,000 tons of sheet ingot casting capacity annually, announced a partnership with Sortera Alloys, which it also invested in, in the summer of 2022. Sortera has developed and patented technology using artificial intelligence- (AI-) based sensor sorters to upgrade shredded nonferrous scrap.

Using Sortera’s technology, Novelis says it will be able to separate mixed automotive scrap into individual alloys and recycle them back into the same product.

In late November 2023, Holland, Michigan, recycling company Padnos and Norway-based aluminum producer Norsk Hydro announced their joint venture, Alusort LLC, designed to industrialize Hydro’s proprietary laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, or LIBS, technology, HySort. Hydro invested $4 million in the 50-50 joint venture.

”To help feed those investments on the aluminum side, we’ve seen a number of companies invest in sorting capacity that will enable them to add value to lower grades of scrap or sort by alloy type.”

Alusort LLC will install a HySort machine at Padnos’ existing facility in Grandville, Michigan, with production expected to start this year.

“Digging deeper into the scrap pile and returning more aluminum to the cycle not only contributes to reducing emissions and nature impact—it’s also good business,” Hydro President and CEO Hilde Merete Aasheim says in the news release about the partnership.

Padnos President and CEO Jonathan Padnos adds, “Collaboration and market demand play critical roles in innovation. Hydro is the perfect partner for us to take aluminum recycling to the next level with our Alusort joint venture.”

Also in late 2023, Michigan-based Schupan announced an investment of more than $40 million in two aluminum shredding and sorting facilities, the first of which, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, was expected to begin production early this year. The second is in Logan County, Kentucky, near several of the company’s large consuming customers. The investment allows the company to enhance its product offering by adding value to obsolete scrap.

In addition to addressing the need to maximize aluminum scrap use and value, these investments show the potential benefits of closely aligning with consuming consumers.