Leading grain refiner specialist MQP has launched a new 5:02 variant that not only meets demand for ‘super-clean’ aluminium, but is also super-efficient.

Developed in partnership with Brunel Centre for Advanced Solidification Technology (BCAST), Optifine 5:02 is the first of its kind on the global market and meets particular demand from the aerospace and luxury car market for high strength and ‘mirror-like’ surface quality applications.

A 5:02 grain refiner is seen as the holy grail for cleanliness, but, until now, its use has been restricted primarily to the highest-cleanliness applications because it shows low and inconsistent grain refinement efficiency.

MQP Technical Business Development Director Matthew Piper said: “We’re seeing increasing demand for ‘super-clean’ aluminium, particularly in aerospace and premium automotive applications, where both mechanical performance and surface quality requirements are especially demanding.

“In these applications, grain refiner cleanliness is critical to meeting product specifications, requiring very low levels of inclusions such as agglomerates and other local defects that can affect downstream processing and surface finish.

“Our evaluation of commercially available 5:02 products using the Opticast test has typically shown efficiencies in the range of around 20% to 60% of Optifine 3:1, which explains why their use has historically been limited despite their cleanliness advantages.

“Optifine 5:02 contains only around 20% of the boride present in conventional 5:1 and 3:1 compositions, supporting improved cleanliness while still delivering a minimum efficiency of around 70% relative to Optifine 3:1. This makes it possible in many applications to significantly reduce addition rates and overall treatment cost while maintaining consistent grain refinement performance.

“This combination of cleanliness, consistency and efficiency is unprecedented in the aluminium grain refiner market.”

Grain refinement during the casting of engineering alloys is common practice in the metal casting industry, providing casthouses with a fine and equiaxed grain structure and significantly reduced casting defects for improved perfor¬mance.

However, pre-2000, grain refiners were notoriously inconsistent in performance, resulting in defects, poor quality material and waste.
Optifine high efficiency grain refiners, including Optifine 5:1 125, were developed to solve this problem, leading to the development of Optifine 5:02.

“Optifine 5:02 has been developed to retain the benefits of low boride content associated with cleaner products, while delivering significantly improved and more consistent grain refinement performance,” said Matthew.

MQP and BCAST’s ‘science-meets-industry’ research partnership began six years ago to unlock the technology to increase grain refiner efficiency and consistently improve melt quality and eliminate substandard products across manufacturing.

Get in touch if you’d like to know how Optifine 5:02 grain refiner can help your cashouse achieve super clean quality and superior efficiency.