Use of Incinerator Bottom Ash (IBA) in Aluminium Recycling

Incinerator Bottom Ash (IBA) originates from incineration of municipal waste. The waste contains a fraction of metal where some is aluminium. Unless proper treatment, the bottom ash ends up either in landfills or in best case as building material. Aluminium recovered from IBA can be recycled and used as a material in aluminium alloy production. This paper describes the characterisation of a typical big-bag of aluminium recovered from IBA and delivered to the aluminium industry. The big-bag contained 1300 kg of recovered aluminium in the form of lumps with sizes between 5 and 50 mm. The content was split and sieved into five size classes. Each size class was remelted with salt, and the oxide content and chemical composition was determined. It was found that both oxide content and alloy composition varied between the size classes. This should be considered when using aluminium from IBA as a charge material.