Náttúrufræðingurinn - 1998, Page 74

Liquid aluminium is collected in a mixing fur-
nace (30-60 t) where the necessary Master al-
loys are added to the batch to obtain the cus-
tomer-specified chemical analysis. Then the
metal is transferred to a holding furnace where it
undergoes two cleaning steps. One is purging
with argon-chlorine mixture which is distributed
as fine gas bubbles at the bottom of the furnace.
The waste gas from this process goes through a
wet scrubber before it is released. The second
cleaning step is settling, when the metal is left
undisturbed for 60 min.
After settling, the metal is poured into the
casting machine to form 3-7 rolling ingots. This
process is computer-controlled and all the pa-
rameters stored as Quality data for future refer-
ence. Then the ingot goes through a quality in-
spection and is sawn to the ordered length.
Finished products are finally shipped out
weekly from Straumsvík harbor.
PÚSTFANG HÖFUNDAR/AuTHORS ADDRESS
Sigurður Þór Asgeirsson
Islenska álfélagið hf.
Pósthólf /Box 244
IS-222 Hafnarfjörður
Netfang/E-mail
sta@isal.is
232