High-value predictive insights and decision support for metals manufacturing
DTE serves the global metals industry with a unique solution that provides powerful process insights for producers and manufacturers.
Our first-in-industry in-line elemental analysis technology complements and replaces current slow, expensive and manual methods for process and quality control.
Greener, safer, faster, more valuable
Until now, process control has been limited by need to cast a solid sample for analysis from the melt, delaying the feedback of vital information about the current state of the molten metal.
Our industry-leading LP-LIBS™️ sensor technology is uniquely able to deliver reference quality elemental analysis direct from high temperature liquid, as well as solid, metals in real time.
Combining composition and trace impurity information from every point in the process, DTE’s AI-cloud solution transforms these signals into high-value, predictive decision making insights, assisting our customers to manufacture greener, safer, more efficient and more valuable products.
Addressing key metal industry challenges
across the value chain
Reduce Energy Intensity
- The basic metals industry is one of the world’s largest industrial energy users.
- Primary aluminum production alone consumes about 3% of the world’s electricity at 14MWh/ton, equivalent to about 24 barrels of crude oil per ton.
- As energy is a main input to the basic metals industry, significant opportunities exist for improved real-time and predictive control to optimise energy intensity.
Minimize Emissions
- About 60% of aluminium emissions globally arise from the electricity used to smelt raw materials into the metal, with about 11.5 tons of CO₂ generated per ton of aluminum.
- However about 15% of the total are “process emissions”, including from carbon anodes used in smelting.
- DTE’s solution permits frequent, zero-lag sensing, for tighter process control, reducing emissions.
Operator Safety and Skill Set
- Some 3.9 accidents are recorded per million of hours worked in primary smelters, with metal sampling being one of the most hazardous tasks.
- With full sampling automation, DTE’s robotic sampling helps to distance operators from the hazardous working environment of liquid metal.
- Our solution also minimizes operator sampling variability which is known to contributes up to 70% of errors.
Enhance Process Efficiency
- Together energy (~30%) and anodes (~25%) make up more than half of the cost of aluminum production.
- Aluminium casting typically generates scrap of up to 5%, due to poor quality, as a direct consequence of poor process decision making.
- DTE’s metals intelligence platform provides a wealth of real-time information that can help to optimize production flow, enhancing process efficiency.
Address Resource Scarcity
- Increasing demand for aluminum production is driven by the needs of key industrial sectors (transport, aerospace, wind turbines etc) for improved performance, which are critical to green energy transition.
- As fossil fuel energy sources become unacceptable, industry is faced with a squeeze for ores and power resources.
- Superior elemental analysis allows producers and manufactures to drive the product evolution cycle faster.
Achieve Full Traceability
- There is a growing need for improved security and traceability to track trade tariffs, fraud and sustainability.
- Liquid metal sensing enables continuous generation and verification of metal identity, raising new possibilities for end-to-end visibility of supply chains.
- DTE’s solution has the potential to generate a unique, composition-based identity – for individual cast items, enabling unprecedented visibility.
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