The UK has recently become the first major economy in the world committed to bring all greenhouse gas emission to net zero by 2050. The emphasis of the metal industry, a vital part of the UK's foundation industries, but a challenging area to deep decarbonise, is to develop new ways to produce and recycle metallic materials in an energy-efficient, low-cost and sustainable manner. Solidification is an important route for manufacturing and recycling of metals and alloys. Use of magnetic fields to control solidification has been researched for several decades with a variety of applications ranging from metal purification to advanced liquid metal processing. Successful examples include removing ceramic particles from aluminium melts and improving the internal quality of cast steels. There is huge potential for magnetic fields to be used in new applications such as metal recycling and advanced processing. Magnetic fields have a strong interaction with molten metals and alloys. The interaction is governed by the induced Lorentz force, which modulate the flow of the liquid molten alloys. My recent article [1] demonstrated that the interaction between magnetic fields and molten alloys can be controlled , paving the way towards novel methods for optimizing how magnetic fields can be used in industrial-scale manufacturing and recycling processes. I believe this technology will produce substantial improvements over the current state-of-the-art in process efficiency and materials performance. My recent patent (WO2020/012199A1) using this concept has shown that contaminated iron element in aluminium alloys can be driven out by magnetic fields when aluminium alloys are at the molten state, and subsequently the impurity can be removed effectively, a challenge that metallurgists have struggled to overcome after 40 years of research. The overarching aim of the Fellowship is to develop innovative magnet assemblies for materials manufacturing and recycling. This work will be underpinned by fundamental studies to uncover key underlying mechanisms. Based on my previous discovery and feasibility studies, in this Fellowship, I will develop patentable techniques utilizing magnetic fields for (1) the purification of recycled Al alloys, (2) the property improvement of high temperature alloys and (3) the microstructure control of metal additive manufacturing (3D printing). The Fellowship will accelerate the process of bringing the innovation from the lab to the market, as it provides unique opportunities to work with key industry partners. I will also address the underlying mechanisms for MHD control using a multidisciplinary approach, building upon my Turing Fellowship, coupling synchrotron based 4D (3D plus time) observation, data-driven analytics, and multi-physics modelling. This will not only lay strong foundations for process optimization, but also accelerate the development of entirely new solutions for incorporating MHD in manufacturing and recycling. The success of the Fellowship will increase the competitiveness of the UK's metal industries including aluminium recycling, casting, and additive manufacturing. [1] Cai et a. Acta materialia, 2020(196): 200-209 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2020.06.041

Metal manufacturing is responsible for 8% of global CO2 emissions and if carbon neutrality is to be achieved by 2050, we critically need to transition to more sustainable processes. In this project we address the underlying science and understanding to allow a higher utilisation of low embedded-carbon, higher impurity recycled metal as a feedstock for metal manufacturing. Current manufacturing approaches are highly dependent on energy-intensive primary metal as they rely on tightly controlled compositions with very low impurity contents to provide the required materials properties. We believe that the new understanding needed to provide transformative and efficient methods to manufacture high grade metal alloys using a much higher fraction of lower embedded-carbon recycled material as a feedstock can be delivered by leveraging the combined power of multi-modal X-ray imaging and in-line artificial intelligence. We will develop a new wholistic characterisation system comprising both newly developed hardware and AI algorithms named Artificial Intelligence X-ray Imaging (AIXI) as an intelligent tool to investigate the solidification of impurity-rich alloys in experimental conditions comparable to those found in industrial processes such as continuous casting, direct chill casting, shape casting and additive manufacturing for a wide range of aluminium and steel alloy compositions. AIXI will provide a significant advantage over existing approaches as AI will be embedded in the data acquisition system and used to interpret raw data in real-time, drastically reducing the complexity and time required for data analysis and significantly increasing the analytical power of the system. The new knowledge will allow us to finally understand the role that impurities and minor alloy additions play in the developing solidification microstructure, and to develop methodologies to mitigate their deleterious effects. It will also promote a shift to a more holistic approach for alloy design in which the solidification microstructure is engineered to both provide enhanced properties and to facilitate subsequent downstream processes with minimised environmental impact. The newly acquired knowledge will foster the development of science for `sustainable' alloys, which will: enhance metal recyclability by reducing the need for dilution of recycled scrap with energy intensive primary metal; encourage greater use of lower-grade scrap, widely available in the UK but currently exported; decrease the number of downstream processing steps (process intensification), especially heat treatment practices; simplify component recoverability by reducing the reliance on tight compositions specifications; and enhance materials properties by improving control over the final microstructure. We will uncover and apply the missing science to control phase transformations to create more benign and impurity tolerant microstructures and allow more efficient use of expensive and potentially scarce alloy additions, which will substantially cut resource use in the CO2-intensive metal industries. Furthermore, we envisage that the application of the developed hardware/AI analysis could potentially facilitate rapid scientific development in many fields of materials science and beyond where efficient, rapid collection and analysis of complex and large multi-modal datasets is critical to unlock the necessary understanding

Summary Unlike other materials for engineering applications, metals, such as aluminium and magnesium, can be recycled repeatedly without loss of their inherent properties. Recycling metals is not only economically viable, but also extremely beneficial for conservation of limited natural resources, reduction of energy consumption and waste generation, all contributing positively to a sustainable economy. One of the main barriers to the increased use of recycled light alloy scrap (both process scrap (new) and post consumer scrap (old)) is the existence of excessive levels of inclusions and impurity elements, which usually leads to downgrading into materials with poorer mechanical properties and reduced corrosion resistance. The prime objective of the proposed project is to break down this barrier and prevent market failure through the application of the step-change rheoforming technologies to allow the re-use of aluminium and magnesium alloy scrap in high-level automotive and other value added applications. The technical approach is to convert melts of recycled light alloy scrap into a semi-solid slurry using a twin screw slurry maker (TSSM) combined with a slurry accumulator and to feed this into a rheodiecaster for near net shape components, or a rheoextruder for continuous extruded profiles. Owing to the intensive forced convection in the TSSM, both inclusions and impurity elements (usually as intermetallic compounds in the solidified microstructure) will be divided into extremely fine particles and dispersed uniformly throughout the entire casting, eliminating/reducing the detrimental effects to ductility and corrosion resistance. This will result in extensive materials re-use, producing castings and extruded sections of aluminium and magnesium alloys made from selected combinations of post consumer scrap (PCS) supplied by Norton Aluminium and magnesium diecasting scrap supplied by Meridian. The mechanical performance and corrosion properties of the rheoformed products will be assessed against current production aluminium and magnesium castings and wrought products made from conventional primary metal based melts. For magnesium the emphasis of the project will be on production of rheodiecastings with a much smaller activity on wrought products, whilst for aluminium the emphasis will be both on high performance castings and on wrought products, particularly rheoextrusions. The work at BCAST will focus on the following aspects: (1) As the technology provider, BCAST team will focus on developing the rheoforming technologies, particularly the rheo-diecasting and the rheoextrusion processes, for upcycling light alloy scrap into high quality components for automotive and other general engineering applications. This will include design, commissioning and optimisation of the rheoextruder, integration of the rheoextruder with the slurry supply system. (2) The BCAST team will characterise the chemical compositions, microstructures, mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of rheoformed products produced from different scrap sources. The results will feed into the process optimisation programme as guidelines, and will also be used to understand the relationships between chemical composition, processing conditions and engineering performance. (3) The BCAST team will assist the industrial scale trials for rheoforming Al scrap at Norton Aluminium and for rheo-diecasting of magnesium scrap at Meridian. The project will develop a unique UK partnership of material producers, recyclers, technology providers and product manufacturers to develop a novel processing route for increasing the re-use and recycled content of light alloy materials by upcycling into higher-value products. Such a collaborative development will enable rapid UK commercial exploitation and will reduce dependency on imported products.

Within the automotive industry there is an ever-increasing demand for the use of lightweight materials, particularly aluminium alloys, for structural components. Cold forming of aluminium alloy sheet metal components has the problems of low ductility and high springback, which are difficult to solve. Hot stamping can increase formability and reduce springback, but it destroys the desirable microstructure and the post-forming heat-treatment required to restore it would result in distortion of the formed panels during quenching after Solution Heat Treatment (SHT). To overcome the above problems, a novel process, which is called solution Heat treatment, Forming and cold-die Quenching (HFQ), for producing high strength and high precision Al-alloy sheet parts, has been the subject of some preliminary tests by the principal investigator. From the initial investigation, it has been concluded that HFQ could be an excellent process to produce high strength, high precision heat-treatable Al-alloy sheet components and to increase the formability of leaner composition non-heat-treatable alloys. Thus this project aims to establish the basic science and process window in order to predict suitable alloy and die combinations to successfully implement the process, in the first instance, into the automotive industry.

Within the automotive industry there is an ever-increasing demand for the use of lightweight materials, particularly aluminium alloys, for structural components. Cold forming of aluminium alloy sheet metal components has the problems of low ductility and high springback, which are difficult to solve. Hot stamping can increase formability and reduce springback, but it destroys the desirable microstructure and the post-forming heat-treatment required to restore it would result in distortion of the formed panels during quenching after Solution Heat Treatment (SHT). To overcome the above problems, a novel process, which is called solution Heat treatment, Forming and cold-die Quenching (HFQ), for producing high strength and high precision Al-alloy sheet parts, has been the subject of some preliminary tests by the principal investigator. From the initial investigation, it has been concluded that HFQ could be an excellent process to produce high strength, high precision heat-treatable Al-alloy sheet components and to increase the formability of leaner composition non-heat-treatable alloys. Thus this project aims to establish the basic science and process window in order to predict suitable alloy and die combinations to successfully implement the process, in the first instance, into the automotive industry.