In Guangyuan city, Southwest China's Sichuan province, a number of aluminum production enterprises have been established along the east-west direction within an area of a few kilometers, including molten aluminum enterprises, aluminum-based material enterprises, and aluminum leftover material recycling enterprises.

They gather in the Guangyuan Economic and Technological Development Zone and have established an aluminum industrial cluster and aluminum industrial chain.

The aluminum ingot trading center in Guangyuan, Sichuan province [Photo/share.gyxww.cn]

It takes just five minutes for a car of molten aluminum to be transported from a molten aluminum enterprise to an aluminum-based material enterprise. The aluminum production process achieves the goal of "workshop to workshop" from a source enterprise to a mid-stream enterprise.

The zone's downstream recycled aluminum enterprises provide leftover aluminum materials for aluminum-based material manufacturers, who use high-temperature molten aluminum to melt leftover aluminum materials and produce recycled aluminum. The recycled aluminum is sold to aluminum industrial downstream enterprises for further development and utilization.

A worker is busy making aluminum alloy wheels. [Photo/share.gyxww.cn]

Workers are making aluminum alloy wheels at the workshop of Guangyuan Anyu Aluminum Alloy Wheel Co.

Every day, more than 10 tons of molten aluminum is transported from Hongchangsheng Aluminum Co to the casting workshop of Anyu Aluminum Alloy Wheel Co. The entire process takes just 15 minutes and the molten aluminum flows into the workshop through the pipelines.

Workers simply scoop molten aluminum from the furnace and pour it onto the molds. After further processing, aluminum alloy wheels roll off the production line.

"The direct supply of molten aluminum has two advantages. One is to reduce the energy consumption of upstream enterprises to make aluminum ingots, and the other is downstream enterprises do not need to remelt the aluminum, which significantly reduces energy consumption and costs," said Zhao Gangyi, assistant general manager of Anyu Aluminum Alloy Wheel Co.

Zhao added that since 2018 when the company shifted its focus to export, they have reduced production but improved product quality. Currently, the company exports nearly 600,000 wheels each year.

Workers from a downstream enterprise smelts leftovers of aluminum. [Photo/share.gyxww.cn]

Guangyuan Meisheng Aluminum Co is a downstream enterprise of Guangyuan Guosheng Environmental Protection Co. Every month, Guangyuan Guosheng Environmental Protection repurchases more than 200 tons of leftover materials from Meisheng Aluminum. The products produced after re-melting are sold back to Meisheng Aluminum again for recycling.

The recycling of aluminum benefits both upstream and downstream enterprises, and the stable supply and sales relationship also helps save energy and reduce consumption.

Peng Bikun, general manager of Guangyuan Guosheng Environmental Protection Co., Ltd., said that compared to the production of the same amount of primary aluminum, the production of one ton of recycled aluminum can save 3.4 tons of standard coal and 14 cubic meters of water, as well as reduce solid waste discharge by 20 tons.