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melt quality
Welcome
MQP is a global leader in the development, manufacture and application process of grain refinement in aluminium alloys.
Our product, Optifine, is a highly efficient grain refiner produced in a state-of-the-art facility using our proprietary know-how. Quality assurance and development of Optifine products is carried out at our laboratory in Sweden and our Technology Center in the UK.
Optifine was developed after 20 years of research, and improvement of grain refinement practices in the worlds leading casthouses.
By implementing Optifine in your process, grain refiner addition rates can be reduced by 70% whilst improving alloy microstructure and still achieving the same grain size as using any other grain refiner.
Optifine has been used in regular production since 2010, it is now one of the most important consumable products in more than 34 major casthouses worldwide where producing high quality aluminium alloys with outstanding results is a priority. To date, more than 4,000t of Optifine, the equivalent of 12,000t of standard grain refiner, has been supplied to the Aluminium industry and casthouses are casting more than 6 million tons per year of Optifine grain refined Aluminium alloy products.
Our products have inherent quality & cost benefits
The addition of less grain refiner positively
impacts on the cost of grain refining lowering the annual casthouse spend on grain refining by 50%. In addition, there will be less transportation, fewer coil changes, reduced warehousing and more.
Compared to standard grain refiners Optifine
addition rate is reduced by 70% whilst achieving the required grain size. By adding 70% less grain refiner the reduction in borides and other inclusion particles will be reduced by the same amount. This will have an impact on the final product quality reducing inclusion related defects like razor streaks, can tears, pinholes in foil and more.
Every batch of Optifine is tested using the
Opticast Nucleation Performance Test to guarantee grain refining efficiency and cleanliness of the product before it arrives at your casthouse. Optifine is the only available product tested in this way and therefore if your grain refiner is not tested by MQP with Opticast it’s not Optifine.
LATEST NEWS
ELECTRIC VEHICLE SECTOR TO BENEFIT FROM NEW HIGH EFFICIENCY GRAIN REFINER – OPTIFINE 5:1 125
In a recent paper published in Light Metal Age, [Read more...]
THE EFFECT OF ZIRCONIUM POISONING ON GRAIN REFINERS
The paper concludes “There is great potential to help ensure [Read more...]
MQP unveils new ultra-efficient Optifine 5:1 125 at NorCast 2021
MQP was invited to unveil its new Optifine 5:1 125 [Read more...]
PUBLICATIONS
Managing Grain Refining Efficiency: The Way
Forward for Aluminum Casthouses
Grain refiners are sold to casthouses and foundries with one purpose—to create a fine-grained structure in the cast aluminum. Or that’s what they should do. In principle, all aluminum melts must be grain refined to avoid cracks in the cast product.
Click the PDF publication below to find out more.
Optifine grain refiner from MQP
Optifine was ‘born’ as a result of the outcome of a quest. The goal was to find a method of accurately predicting the amount of grain refiner to be added to a melt in order to achieve a required grain size.
Click the PDF publication below to find out more.
Eti Aluminium – Turkey
The majority of the furnace charges in Eti have a substantial proportion of its own primary aluminium and the standard grain refinement practice was to add 2.2kg/tonne of commercial 5/1 TiBAl. A series of trials were carried out in the Seydisehir casthouse by MQP.
Click the PDF publication below to find out more.
