On Oct 6^th, 2011, Dr. Norbert Röttgen, Federal Environment Minister, inaugurated five new chamber furnaces for the heat treatment of aluminium strip coils at our customer ALUMINIUM NORF GmbH.

ALUMINIUM NORF GmbH received promotion for this project from the Federal Ministry for the Environment because the new furnaces achieve "beyond state-of-the-art" energy savings corresponding to the CO₂ equivalent of 8,300 tons/year based on a mathematical model consisting of a planning module and an online module. The planning module compiles batches based on optimum energy efficiency while the online module controls the furnaces according to the demands of the planning tool and steps in when conditions change.

Dr. Günter Valder, General Manager Engineering Thermoprocessing Plants

Environmental / Pilot Project

Innovative annealing furnaces for the aluminium industry

New equipment technology makes operations more eco-friendly

The German Federal Ministry of Environment is making available 1.5 million Euro from its Environmental Innovation Programme for a pilot project currently under implementation at Aluminium Norf GmbH in Neuss (North Rhine-Westphalia). The company produces sheet and strip from aluminium stock. Advanced annealing furnaces will make it possible to work in a much more energy-efficient manner and save approx. 8,300 tonnes p.a. of CO₂ emissions compared to prior practices with previous equipment.

Aluminium Norf intends to employ innovative, energy-efficient annealing furnaces embodying the most advanced equipment technology in its cold-rolling lines. The use of an on-line process control system will enable the company to save huge amounts of energy in its annealing operation by feeding the strip at its "as-rolled" temperature instead of cold. So far, the annealing furnaces used to be controlled on the basis of trials and metallurgical experience, which called for a defined furnace temperature and for cold strip at the beginning of the annealing cycle. This meant that the strip had to be cooled down first after the upstream rolling step, resulting in the loss of valuable residual heat. With the new system, temperature measurements carried out both on the strip and inside the furnace permit the computer-controlled determination of a real-time thermal balance. This enables the heat input into the annealing furnaces to be reduced to exactly what is needed.

Based on an annual output of 180,000 tonnes of product, the project will save 4,857,705 kWh of electrical power and 9,804,600 kWh of natural gas compared to the previous equipment.

For further information on the subsidy programme and the project detailed above, visit:

www.bmu.de/foerderprogramme/pilotprojekte_inland/doc/46977.php