The current times are surprising, among other things, because, thanks to the Internet, a huge number of innovations and mini-technologies are spreading throughout the world almost instantly, producing a huge number of homemade craftsmen everywhere who are setting up all kinds of production at home. Moreover, it is not limited to the reproduction of only “indigo” children by loving couples in the homemade miracle beds invented by these homemade miracle beds. Where there! The most advanced craftsmen manage to make gadgets at home, harvest a full harvest of apples in their garden plots already in May, and even get tons of non-ferrous metals!
We decided to share some innovations of such homemade handicrafts with readers in this article. For example, talk about how to open an aluminum Eldorado without leaving the cash register, that is, without leaving home.
Melting and other furnaces for aluminum
The smaller the furnace capacity, the higher the maintenance costs per ton of metal. Therefore, the aluminum industry is currently dominated by furnaces with a capacity of 25 tons or more. This furnace bath capacity is considered optimal from the point of view of maintenance and operational efficiency.
Another factor when choosing a furnace capacity may be the product delivery conditions. Typically, the minimum batch of aluminum is 20 tons and one of the customer requirements is that all the metal should be from one melt.
An important factor when choosing a stove is its ease of maintenance. The slag that is formed during the operation of the furnace - melting furnace, mixing furnace, holding furnace - tends to accumulate on the walls of the furnace or settle to its bottom, sometimes it even ends up on the roof of the furnace. Even with the most optimal oven design, this cannot be avoided 100%. An increase in the thickness of the slag on the furnace walls and bottom of the furnace reduces its efficiency. Therefore, this slag must be cleaned off periodically. This is all the more important when changing the alloy that is smelted in the furnace. Therefore, the design of the furnace must necessarily provide for the possibility of removing slag from the surface of the melt and conveniently cleaning the furnace.
However, the most important issue when choosing a furnace is the choice of the type of energy that will be supplied to the furnace.
Extraction process
1. As soon as you bring the bauxite, you will need to dry it. You can spread newspapers and lay out the collected early raw materials. After that, take the most ordinary hair dryer. Use it to dry. Of course, it is much preferable to use some serious drying unit for this purpose. When the weather is sunny, drying can be done outside. However, it is worth remembering that you need to make sure that the dried clay does not dry to anything. To do this, the surface can be sprinkled with flour or sand, depending on what you have at hand.
2. Now is the time to grab a concrete mixer! Using a concrete mixer, grind the dried early. Using a concrete mixer, you need to bring it to the state of sand or even dust, since it is much faster and much less expensive to obtain metal with small crumbs than with large pieces. This principle has been known to chemistry for a long time. For those who do not have a concrete mixer, a simple hammer will be a real salvation. True, it will take a lot of effort to process a whole heap weighing five hundred kilograms. Therefore, it is worth thinking about purchasing a concrete mixer later.
3. It's time to take the graphite powder you bought. Today it will be needed in order to avoid a fire hazard. Next we have to deal with electric current. The resistance of raw materials to electric current passing through it greatly increases the risk of fire. Ordinary graphite powder, on the contrary, reduces resistance and helps control temperature regulation. With its help, it will be much safer to extract from clay. Make a graphite mixture.
4. The main stage comes. Get out your metal barrel. Place the mixture of powders you obtained in the previous step there. Open the tap and fill the mixture in the metal barrel with water. The mixture must be moistened so that the electric current sent through the barrel can freely pass through. Also, with the help of water, we can significantly speed up the process of extracting aluminum from a mixture of powders.
5. The next step is the most important one. Finally, we use electricity using a welding machine. It is imperative to take precautions! Of course, you should wear rubber gloves and boots. This way, avoid possible burns from the electric current of the welding machine. Following normal safety precautions, connect the welding machine to the metal drum. It is worth waiting fifteen to thirty seconds while the electricity passes through the metal barrel. During this time, oxygen from heating by electric current will leave the powder along with water. Remove the welding machine.
Furnaces for aluminum: gas, fuel oil and diesel fuel
The following types of fossil fuels are used in furnaces for melting, aging and processing aluminum:
- natural gas;
- fuel oil;
- diesel fuel.
The choice of energy carrier depends on its availability at the production location. Natural gas is very convenient for use in furnaces, but it can be used if there is an accessible gas pipeline nearby. If this is not possible, then use fuel oil or diesel fuel.
Diesel fuel is more convenient than heating oil, but has a high price. Fuel oil is cheaper than diesel fuel, but its use is associated with certain difficulties.
Gas, oil and diesel furnaces typically have designs that are variations of traditional hearth furnaces, chill furnaces and rotary furnaces. These furnaces are most often used in the aluminum industry and have good performance in terms of metal yield and energy consumption. Since these furnaces use direct radiation of heat, the efficiency of the combustion system is very high and the heat transfer to the metal is very high.
Is the game worth the candle?
Now let’s take a quick look at whether it makes sense to produce aluminum at home.
First, let's calculate the costs based on the extraction of 200 kg of metal from 500 kg of clay, which can be done in a day.
Graphite
Its consumption for our volume of clay will be 50 kg. With the price of graphite being about 2 rubles per kilo (depending on its brand), you will spend a hundred on it.
Petrol
Its consumption depends on the distance of the quarry or river with raw materials from your home production. Of course, you won’t go 100 kilometers to get bauxite. On average, it can be collected within a radius of 10–20 km from the city. Let's assume the road is 15 km, which means it's 30 km there and back. With the current price of gasoline just over 30 rubles per liter, you will spend another hundred on a one-time delivery of clay.
Additional expenses
Depreciation (primarily cars), electricity (however, it will cost pennies) and other unaccounted expenses, which, according to the personal production experience of the authors of the article, will amount to approximately 40-50 rubles. Plus you will need another 50 kilos of some reagents used as a catalyst. At a cost of about 30 rubles per kilo, your costs will increase by another fifteen hundred.
(We will not consider in detail what these reagents are in this article, because we will spend half a page on chemical formulas alone. However, for those who are seriously interested in the process, we will tell everything and even provide detailed technology, confirmed by a patent). And now it’s not difficult to calculate that in the end, as they say, for everything about everything, we will spend about 1800 rubles.
Income
We sell 200 kg of aluminum at a minimum price of 30 rubles per kilo, we get 6,000 rubles. Total net income will be: 6000 – 1800 = 4200 (rubles). This is in one working day.
It turns out that in a month (based on the fact that there are, on average, 22 working days in it) you can earn 92,400 rubles. Moreover, keep in mind that we carried out all financial expenses to the maximum, and reduced the weight of the resulting aluminum to a minimum in the calculations. So real incomes will be even higher than estimated ones. That is, without really straining, you will receive about one hundred thousand rubles in a month!
Electric melting furnaces for aluminum
According to their design, electric furnaces for melting aluminum are divided into resistance furnaces and induction furnaces. Electric heating may in some cases be more convenient than, for example, gas heating, but only if cheap electrical energy is available.
The use of electric heating in furnaces in the production of primary aluminum seems quite justified, if only because of the low cost of electrical energy for such production. However, the cost of electric may be completely different in the place where the production of secondary aluminum is located. The absence of combustion products of gas or other fuel during furnace processing of aluminum melt ensures low losses from metal oxidation, and also eliminates contamination of the aluminum melt with hydrogen and other gases. From an environmental point of view, these are cleaner ovens.
DIY forge for melting aluminum
Aluminum is used in the production of parts in blacksmithing. The peculiarity of such an alloy is that it has low weight, a high degree of ductility, and good conductivity of heat and electricity. With all these qualities, the alloy in question can be called a low-melting material, which significantly increases its popularity. To carry out work on creating parts from aluminum by bringing the alloy to a plastic state, a forge is used. For many years, people have considered the question of how to make a forge for melting aluminum and the result of a huge number of attempts has become structures that you can create with your own hands.
Crucible induction furnaces
Crucible induction furnaces can work with clean scrap, ingots or liquid aluminum. Due to size limitations, induction furnaces have a maximum capacity of 8-10 tons, which may not be sufficient for large-scale secondary aluminum production. Such large ovens have a fairly large diameter and are loaded from the top, which poses an increased danger to personnel. Typically, induction furnaces require large capital investments and are characterized by high maintenance and labor costs. Therefore, in the secondary aluminum production industry, induction furnaces are rarely used and are mainly used for remelting small aluminum shavings.
Electric resistance furnaces
Resistance melting furnaces are designed as stationary or tilting reverberatory furnaces. Heating elements are installed on the roof of the furnace and the metal is heated only due to radiation energy. The operating temperature of refractory materials for the walls and roof of an aluminum melting furnace is about 1200 °C, which is the limiting factor for this type of furnace. The energy that comes from the radiation of the roof does not allow effective melting of solid charge materials. Therefore, such furnaces are mainly used as furnaces for holding and casting metal. In the absence of combustion products in the furnace, metal losses from oxidation are very low. The initial cost and maintenance cost of such furnaces is quite high, but must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Typically this type of furnace is not used in the production of secondary aluminum.
Initial production preparation
So where should you start producing aluminum?
Of course, with the arrangement of production areas where we will establish this business. Of course, if we work at home, then we are not talking about opening a huge workshop. Aluminum production can easily be carried out in a separate non-residential room, but it is best in some kind of extension to the house or even in a permanent garage. True, a prerequisite for the distribution of aluminum “on-the-mountain” will be the presence in the room of a standard 220-volt power source.
The main thing here is different: everything you need additionally is freely available.
This:
- conventional welding machine;
- bauxite;
- graphite powder;
- metal barrel;
- concrete mixer.
What bauxite is, we know from school, there is no need to explain - it is nothing more than ordinary clay, which contains from 40 to 80% aluminum. You can easily dig it up in a nearby quarry or on the bank of the nearest river. Buy a welding machine at the Tools store, and you can find a barrel, graphite and a concrete mixer at construction equipment and building materials stores. As they say, no problem!
Well, in principle, now we are ready to open the production of valuable metal. What else do we need? Only one:
