GHI supplies world’s biggest rotary tilting furnace for aluminium recycling

One of the most important aluminium recycling companies in Europe has commissioned GHI Smart Furnaces the supply of a tilting rotary furnace of 65 t for its plant in Spain. This is the world’s biggest furnace of this kind ever manufactured.

The furnace is in operation at Befesa Asua, one of the most important aluminum recycling companies in Europe. The furnace, with a capacity of 65 t, exceeds 30 % the previous record, established by GHI with its supply to Fracsa Alloys located in Mexico. The new furnace, the current one, is also a considerable size equipment, since it weighs about 150 t, is 8.5 m long and 5.5 m high, uses natural gas and oxygen as fuel and reaches working temperatures of up to 1,000 °C. The furnace will improve the costs per t as it replaces a fixed-axis equipment with higher salt consumption and lower energy efficiency. In addition, it will be sensorized, which will provide the basis for designing a management model of the installation in which the “eye and expertise” of the operator loses weight in decision-making.

The furnace recovers the aluminium from the low quality scrap and produces a waste of contaminants significantly lower than the traditional models, in addition its geometry facilitates the emptying and cleaning of the dross.

The equipment has an advanced technological component as it is fully integrated within Industry 4.0. It has advanced sensorization capable of transmitting more than 1,000 values per second to be analyzed by Big Data systems and specialized engineers in GHI. This allows the customer to have suggestions for improvement, predictive and preventive maintenance and assistance to use the installation. “From our facilities in Spain we can monitor all the key parameters of the furnace in real time and we can advise our customer on how to optimize its operation”, highlights Jose Berasategui, General Director of GHI.