INTERVIEW: Novelis, Sortera partnership could solve aluminum sheet recycling challenges: executive

Novelis' recently announced partnership with scrap metal sorting and recycling company Sortera could unlock opportunities to recover greater volumes of separated alloys and rolled aluminum sheet from automotive scrap streams for recirculation into the market, an executive for Novelis told S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Specifically, Sortera's innovative sorting and recycling methods can help solve two challenges associated with aluminum recovery from automotive scrap: the segregation of different alloys from automotive OEM industrial production scrap and the retrieval of rolled sheet from end-of-life vehicle scrap, according to Derek Prichett, senior vice president of corporate development at Novelis.

"The first problem that we hope to solve with Sortera is with mixed stamping scrap from new production scrap that's coming back from automotive stamping operations that is typically 5000 and 6000 series alloys blended together," Prichett said in an interview.

"We are limited with how much of that we can recycle into our automotive alloy ingots and turn back into the original product when the 5000 and 6000 series are mixed, so that creates some barriers," he added.

Prichett said technology does currently exist to segregate these alloys, but it is slow and inefficient. However, Sortera has modified these technologies to increase alloy separation productivity and throughput, he added.

Novelis purchases industrial scrap directly from many of its customers. Through the partnership, the Atlanta-based aluminum roller and recycler will send some volumes of its mixed alloy scrap to Sortera for sorting and recovery. The segregated alloys will then be sent back to Novelis for remelting, casting and rolling into automotive sheet with increased recycled content.

Aside from the cleaner industrial scrap obtained from OEMs, Sortera's technology can recover rolled aluminum sheet from post-consumer twitch scrap streams.

"We've always wanted to recover the rolled sheet out of that stream and put it back into rolling ingots and then supply it back to the OEM with post-consumer recycled content, and that is one of our big objectives over time," he said, adding that OEMs have been pushing for aluminum products with higher recycled scrap content.

In a joint statement with Novelis July 19, Sortera CEO Michael Siemer said the partnership between the two companies was "poised to disrupt the global aluminum recycling space while cutting global emissions and driving a more sustainable industry."

Rolled scrap resources seen growing

Twitch aluminum scrap currently contains an estimated 20% rolled sheet, 20% extrusions and 60% cast alloys, according to Prichett. However, he said more rolled aluminum sheet from end-of-life vehicles is projected to come into the scrap supply chain in the future since aluminum content in new vehicles has steadily increased over the years.

"Those vehicles are starting to come off the road now, so what we believe is going to happen over time is the proportion of rolled aluminum sheet in that end-of-life twitch stream will increase significantly over time," he said.

"The cast fraction will probably decline as we see the shift in the materials of construction of new vehicles and then also the shift from internal combustion vehicles to electric vehicles."

Sortera will also be able to segregate alloys contained in the end-of-life aluminum sheet, Prichett added.

"Sortera has some technology that is quite different from what we've seen in the industry over time, and this is something that's a new capability as far as we're concerned," he said.

Investment in Sortera

In addition to the partnership, Novelis has made an equity investment in Sortera, thus becoming a shareholder and investor in the recycler.

Prichett said the funding of Sortera represents an early investment that is part of Novelis' recently established corporate venture department, Novelis Ventures, that he leads.

"The fact that we're making an equity investment is certainly reinforcing our belief that this is interesting technology and something that is strategic to us over time, and we would expect this partnership to grow," he said.

Sortera's head office and operations are based in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The company is now building dedicated lines and production capacity at its facility to support its partnership with Novelis.

Securing domestic supply

Sortera's sorting and recycling technology could also provide the advantage of retaining and securing a domestic supply of recycled aluminum sheet, as well as other raw materials, Prichett said.

"Most of that twitch scrap today is either going into casting, and thus losing the rolled sheet and extrusion portion ... or it's being exported out of the US," he said. "Most of that material is currently going to Asia, and a lot of it, we believe, is ending up in China."

"This [technology] is a way to keep that scrap local in North America and in the US and put it back into products that are supplied into the North American market, and that's very positive as well in terms of the secure supply of critical raw materials for the North American market," he added.

The US exported about 1.73 million mt of aluminum scrap, excluding industrial process scrap and used beverage can scrap, in 2021, according to data compiled by the US International Trade Commission.

By excluding industrial and UBC scrap from total scrap export numbers, the remaining export volume better represents the amount of lower grades of scrap, such as twitch, that are shipped.