Development and marketing of Super S-MIC, a fully electrified aluminum melting and holding furnace that contributes to realizing a carbon-free society

Targets

9.4　By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes, with all countries taking action in accordance with their respective capabilities

12.2　By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources

 

Initiative details

At Sanken Sangyo Co., Ltd., which provides industrial furnaces used for manufacturing metal products, we are committed to developing new technologies and products that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save energy, and conserve resources based on our philosophy of “contributing to the conservation of the global environment and the harmonious development of human society through the provision of heat and energy-related technologies, products, and services.”

 

The concept of the SDGs, which calls for protecting the Earth while pursuing prosperity, is consistent with the way our business supports the sustainable production of metal products that support prosperous lifestyles, such as automobiles and smartphones, by saving energy in the production process and providing recycling facilities.
In 2020, we developed the Super S-MIC, a fully electrified aluminum melting and holding furnace that uses high-efficiency immersion heaters. This Super S-MIC is an improved version of the S-MIC developed in 2010, and we are currently working on further improvements and marketing for it.

 

An aluminum melting and holding furnace is a piece of equipment that melts aluminum next to a casting machine used to manufacture automobile parts, etc. and then stores the molten aluminum while maintaining its temperature to prevent it from cooling and hardening. Until now, the most common way to melt aluminum was to heat the raw material directly with a burner using gas or heavy oil as fuel, generating a large amount of CO2 in the process.
However, Super S-MIC does not use a burner, but an electric heater that is immersed in the molten aluminum. This heating method reduces the amount of CO2 generated, and when renewable energy is used, it enables aluminum melting with zero CO2 emissions.
Furthermore, by changing the melting method from thermal to electric power, we can achieve significant energy savings due to increased heat transfer efficiency, improved molten metal quality and reduced raw material losses due to reduced oxidation, and a more compact furnace body due to the elimination of piping.
Going forward, both companies and consumers will create and purchase products with sustainability in mind. By increasing sales of Super S-MIC and further improving it, we will respond to the demands of the times and maintain a society where everyone can live comfortably for years to come.

 

Key Points

We believe that having more customers use Super S-MIC, which reduces the environmental impact of aluminum melting, will contribute to the realization of a sustainable society, and we are communicating information about the product through newspapers, exhibitions, and our website. In addition, we continue to make further improvements to our heaters and furnace bodies. In 2019, we invested in Atherm (France), which produces heaters, to establish a stable system for supplying heaters and a development system for achieving even higher capacity and longer product lifespans. Furthermore, at the end of 2020, we retrieved S-MIC furnaces from our customers plants for research purposes and are currently investigating issues such as corrosion of the furnace body to improve its design.

 

Sanken Sangyo Co., Ltd.

3-1-2 Tomonishi, Asaminami-ku, Hiroshima

+81-082-849-6790

https://www.sanken-sangyo.co.jp/