Science News from research organizations Scientists turn scrap car aluminum into high-performance metal for new vehicles A new “RidgeAlloy” breakthrough could turn mountains of discarded car aluminum into high-value material for the next generation of vehicles. Date: March 10, 2026 Source: DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory Summary: Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have created a new aluminum alloy called RidgeAlloy that can turn contaminated car-body scrap into strong structural vehicle parts. Normally, impurities introduced during recycling make this scrap unsuitable for high-performance applications. RidgeAlloy overcomes that challenge, enabling recycled aluminum to meet the strength and durability standards required for modern vehicles. The technology could slash energy use, reduce imports, and unlock a huge new supply of domestic aluminum. Share: Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIN Email FULL STORY This automotive part was manufactured from RidgeAlloy, a new structural alloy developed by researchers at ORNL. It was cast using metals recycled entirely from post-consumer aluminum auto body sheets. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy Over the next decade, a large amount of aluminum from vehicle body panels is expected to enter recycling and salvage systems. Much of this material cannot currently be reused in critical automotive components because contamination makes it too impure. That limitation has reduced its value. Researchers at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are working to change that. The team created a new aluminum alloy called RidgeAlloy that can convert low value recycled aluminum into a reliable source of material for manufacturing structural automotive parts in the United States. Aluminum appears on DOE's critical materials list because it plays an important role in many energy technologies, including systems used to generate, transmit, store and conserve energy. RidgeAlloy is made by remelting aluminum recovered from used products and recasting it into a new alloy designed to meet the strength, ductility and crash safety requirements of structural vehicle components. ORNL researchers developed a targeted alloy design approach that speeds up the development of new materials. "The team advanced from a paper concept to a successful, full-scale part demonstration of a new alloy in only 15 months," said Allen Haynes, director of ORNL's Light Metals Core Program. "That's an unheard-of pace of innovation in developing complex structural alloys." The Growing Challenge of Recycled Automotive Aluminum Vehicles that rely heavily on aluminum began appearing in the U.S. market around 2015, including the Ford F-150 truck series, one of the first aluminum intensive models produced at large scale. Many of those vehicles are expected to reach the end of their usable life by the early 2030s. When that happens, recycling systems could receive as much as 350,000 tons of aluminum body sheet scrap every year in North America. A large portion of this material may end up being used in lower value cast products or exported abroad. That represents a missed opportunity to reuse the metal as a domestic source of high quality aluminum. "You can repurpose post-consumer aluminum into something non-structural like engine blocks," said Alex Plotkowski, ORNL group leader of Computational Coupled Physics. "But it won't have the properties needed for higher value, structurally sound body applications." The main challenge comes from contamination introduced during the vehicle shredding process. Small amounts of iron from parts such as rivets and other fasteners mix into the recycled metal. These impurities make the chemical composition unpredictable and reduce performance, which prevents the material from meeting the strict standards required for structural automotive alloys. Because of this, most lightweight vehicle parts are still made from primary aluminum produced from mined ore. That process requires significant amounts of energy. Turning Scrap Aluminum Into a Domestic Resource Although the United States imports most of its primary aluminum, the country has a well developed network for shredding vehicles and recovering aluminum scrap. "Using remelted scrap instead of primary aluminum is estimated to result in up to 95% reduction in the energy needed for processing a part," said Amit Shyam, leader of ORNL's Alloy Behavior and Design Group. To create RidgeAlloy, researchers used advanced scientific tools to design the alloy composition. High throughput computing was used to perform more than two million calculations that predicted which combinations of elements would deliver the desired mechanical properties. The team also conducted detailed materials analysis and neutron diffraction experiments at ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source, a DOE Office of Science user facility. These experiments helped scientists understand how different