C. Norman Cochran

Automatic Recording Vacuum Microbalance

An automatic control and recording system for the null‐type vacuum microbalance of Czanderna and Honig [Anal. Chem 29, 1206 (1957)] has been assembled from commercial components. A variable permeance transducer is employed to detect beam movement and to control a force to restore the beam to the null position. This force is recorded in a selection of ranges extending from 0–20 000 μg to 0–5 μg with accuracies ranging from 0.1% to 2% of full scale. On the most sensitive settings the balance can detect weight changes as small as 0.01 μg in loads up to 1 g. Stabilities of 0.1 μg have been observed for periods of many hours on the most sensitive ranges. The balance is undamped, and no corrections are made to the restoring force if beam oscillation is centered about the null point.

Aluminum‐Consuming Fluidized‐Bed Anodes

This report summarizes and interprets the results of seven experimental runs with aluminum-chip fluidized-bed anodes performed as part of an aluminum-air battery development program at the Alcoa Technical Center. These experiments tested the feasibility of developing electrochemical power sources fueled by particulate aluminum

RECYCLING OF AUTOMOTIVE ALUMINUM--PRESENT AND FUTURE

About 70% of the 740 million pounds of aluminum in U.S. cars scrapped in 1982 will be recovered for the secondary aluminum industry, making cars second only to used beverage containers as a source of old aluminum scrap. By the late 1990s aluminum could supersede ferrous materials as the component with the highest total scrap value in the car. To fully realize this value, the automotive scrap industry will probably move from methods primarily designed to recover ferrous values toward practices which decrease the mixing of materials that presently limits recovery and value for aluminum. Todays system for recycle of used aluminum beverage cans could foreshadow development of a means for recycling automotive aluminum back to primary aluminum producers. This could be accomplished by increasing dismantling and by identification and segregation of aluminum components by alloy. Aluminum intense structures of the future could be stripped of non-aluminum components and shredded separately or baled.