2. Experimental procedure

The study used aluminum scrap from beverage cans as raw material in the aluminothermic reduction process with ZnO powder as reactive, the composition of both materials were analyzed by atomic emission spectroscopy (AES), the equipment used was SPECTRO model M11, the results are shown in Table 1. The beverage cans were melted in 10 kg capacity induction furnace, then, the melted aluminum was degassed using N2 gas for 10 minutes to obtain secondary aluminum ingots cooled at room temperature. These ingots were cut into pieces of 2 kg to be melted again in a laboratory-scale induction furnace and carried out aluminothermic reduction process using ZnO powder at 750, 800, and 850°C and 200, 250, and 300 rpm of stirring velocities. Figure 1 shows the induction furnace where the aluminothermic reduction was carried out, (a) top view photography of the furnace, (b) scheme of the interior furnace, and (c) the impeller used during the experimentation. The time of all experiments was given for 60 minutes, taking samples every 10 minutes to measure the magnesium and zinc content by AES. The slag was analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) to analyze reaction product types. Finally, the microstructure of the alloys at the end of the process was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM).
