The European aluminium recycling market is currently going through an exciting yet challenging phase with rising demand and scrap outflow

In this interview, as part of the “Europe Aluminium Recycling Market”, Karl Hoffman, Global Sales Director Metal Recycling of STEINERT, has explained the critical role of sorting and separation in determining the quality of recycled aluminium. According to him, this, in turn, may lead to increased recycling rates of aluminium in Europe.

Karl Hoffmann has collected more than 30 years of experience in different positions within the environmental technology industry. Since 2010, Karl has worked for Steinert in Cologne/Germany in different positions. After he joined as Sales Manager, he became Global Key Account Manager and Product Manager for Separation and Sorting Solutions in Metal Recycling. Since the beginning of 2018, he has been responsible for Steinert’s global sales activities in Metal Recycling and has been leading the global Metal Recycling Division of Steinert. Karl holds a Diploma in Process Engineering and a postgraduate MBA.

Karl described himself as “I am an excited “Closed Looper” and thrilled about today's and future resource-saving technologies”

AL Circle: Recycled aluminium demand in Europe is roughly 5 million tonnes annually and is likely to grow to up to 8 million tonnes by 2033. Given that scrap leakage is a concern, how does Steinert help in keeping increasingly scarce resources in circulation? 

Karl Hoffmann: The rising demand for recycled aluminium highlights just how important it is to keep valuable raw materials in the cycle. At the same time, significant quantities of recyclable materials are still being lost due to inadequate sorting.

Steinert’s solutions actively contribute to making better use of this potential. Through intelligent and efficient sorting and separation solution, metals can be precisely identified, separated and recovered to a high standard. This increases both recycling rates and the quality of the recovered products.

This increasingly efficient sorting technology enables attractive business models for recyclers and plant operators. The more recyclable materials that can be recovered economically, the greater the incentive to keep them in the cycle rather than losing them or recycling them at a lower value.

AL Circle: As Europe’s aluminium recycling market shifts from volume-based recovery to quality-led, low-carbon material production, how do Steinert’s latest sorting technology upgrades address the need for higher purity, finer alloy separation and reduced downcycling?

Karl Hoffmann: The market is clearly moving beyond simple recovery volumes. Today, the focus is on producing secondary aluminium that meets much tighter specifications for chemistry, purity and consistency. That is exactly where our latest technology upgrades come in.

With X-Ray Transmission Technology, we can separate heavy metals, aluminium compounds, free magnesium, cast aluminium and wrought aluminium from mixed post-consumer streams and create a much cleaner basis for further processing.

On top of that, our latest PLASMAX LIBS (Laser Induced Breakdowns Spectroscopy) developments enable even more precise alloy sorting, higher throughput and access to finer fractions. This allows recyclers to recover remarkable  more value from each tonne of input and return more material to alloy-specific applications instead of sending it into downcycled end uses.

AL Circle: Steinert’s XRT technology is used for separating heavy metals, aluminium compounds, free magnesium, cast aluminium and wrought aluminium. Why is this separation becoming more important for secondary aluminium producers?

Karl Hoffmann: For secondary aluminium producers, this separation is becoming increasingly important because the availability of high-quality primary raw materials is becoming less and less assured in the future, and the proportion of material from recycling streams is therefore rising steadily.

In order to reliably produce the required alloy grades, different aluminium fractions and accompanying metals must be precisely separated. Heavy metals, free magnesium and the distinction between cast and wrought aluminium have a direct influence on the chemical composition and the subsequent material properties.

XRT technology makes it possible to specifically identify these fractions as early as the sorting process. This gives aluminium producers greater flexibility in selecting their feedstock and enables them to use a higher proportion of secondary raw materials without compromising on quality or process reliability.

This not only improves the availability of raw materials and thus the resilience of this key industry, but also enhances the economic viability and sustainability of aluminium production.

AL Circe: How do you assess the current state of the aluminium recycling market in Europe, especially in terms of technology adoption and processing efficiency? What are the biggest opportunities for aluminium recyclers in Europe over the next five years?

Karl Hoffmann: The European aluminium recycling market is currently going through an exciting yet challenging phase. On the one hand, demand for recycled aluminium is rising steadily, driven by electrification, the expansion of renewable energy and the need for many industries to reduce their carbon footprint. On the other hand, high energy prices, intense global competition and the outflow of aluminium scrap from Europe are putting pressure on producers.

At the same time, regulatory requirements will fundamentally change the operating environment from as early as 2027.

I therefore see the greatest opportunities for the aluminium recycling market in Europe primarily in further optimising recycling processes to increase recovery rates and, above all, improve quality, thereby retaining more valuable material within Europe. The use of state-of-the-art sorting and separation processes promotes the use of recycled aluminium in demanding applications such as the automotive industry or the electronics sector.  Furthermore, investment in the digitalisation of recycling processes significantly boosts their cost-effectiveness. Development in this area has only just begun.

In summary, it can be said that over the next five years, the recycling plants that will be most successful are those capable of supplying high-quality recyclates in large quantities, with a traceable material origin. It is precisely here that innovative sorting and separation technologies offer a decisive competitive advantage.

AL Circle: From your experience, what are the most common quality challenges faced by aluminium recyclers when processing mixed scrap streams?

Karl Hoffmann: In practice, we see that the greatest challenge is the ever-increasing complexity of scrap streams. Many new products are still not consistently designed with recycling in mind and contain a wide variety of different materials, alloys and composites. This high degree of heterogeneity is countered by the ever-increasing demands of smelting plants, which expect high levels of purity and consistent material properties.

AL Circle: What is Steinert’s vision for supporting Europe’s transition toward a more efficient, high-quality and circular aluminium recycling market?

Karl Hoffmann: Our vision is an aluminium recycling market in which secondary raw materials offer the same reliability and quality as primary raw materials. To achieve this, significantly larger quantities of complex scrap streams must be processed to a high standard and kept within the cycle.

This is what we work on day in, day out with our partners and customers.