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Circular economy

Direct upcycling of aluminium scrap

Nature Reviews Materials (2026)Cite this article

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Modern vehicles incorporate a wide range of materials, including dozens of aluminium alloys tailored for specific mechanical, corrosion and manufacturing demands. Yet at their end of life, this sophistication becomes a liability. During recycling, cars are shredded and partially sorted, producing a compositionally mixed aluminium scrap stream that has long been considered unfit for producing high-quality aluminium. Now, writing in Nature Communications, Stefan Pogatscher and colleagues present a one-step upcycling strategy that converts this mixed automotive scrap directly into high-performance aluminium sheet.

Traditionally, these mixed compositions and the presence of impurity elements have been viewed as inherent defects. As the molten scrap cools, the impurities combine with aluminium to form tiny, hard intermetallic particles that are usually considered harmful because they tend to be brittle and can trigger cracks. However, drawing from earlier work on steels, the team challenged this assumption: “the elements currently regarded as detrimental impurities are utilized in our process in a beneficial way to refine the microstructure and enhance properties,” explains Pogatscher. In steels, it was previously shown that certain intermetallic phases can, when carefully controlled, enhance strength without compromising ductility. Extending this idea to aluminium, they proposed that the impurity-rich intermetallic particles naturally present in vehicle aluminium scrap could likewise be turned into assets.

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  1. Nature Reviews Materials http://www.nature.com/natrevmats/

    Charlotte Allard

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  1. Charlotte Allard
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Correspondence to Charlotte Allard.

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Allard, C. Direct upcycling of aluminium scrap. Nat Rev Mater (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-026-00903-9

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