Working with low cost and scrap material streams

We aimed here to devise “Cradle-to-Cradle” strategies for high-value materials streams. There are very significant energy advantages to recycling alloys, but the pick up of contaminants leads to gradual degradation in the properties of alloys. DARE proposed to look at alternative uses, down-cycling the alloy into products where the specifications are not as rigorous, or where advantage could be taken from the changes that had occurred to it.

In particular, we looked at processing Ti foams for low-weight medical applications from gas atomised powder that is not suitable for ALM. We also looked at a reuse cycle for new alloys as we developed them.