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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 powerful new aluminium grain refiner
Leading aluminium specialist MQP has developed an even more powerful
Pioneering research into aluminium grain refiner efficiency back in business
Pioneering research into the efficiency of grain refiner to bring
Optifine grain refiner production capacity doubled with STNM plant expansion
Aluminium specialist MQP’s parent company has more than doubled the
PUBLICATIONS
Hulamin – South Africa
Hulamin is a large semi fabricator operating casthouses in South Africa, producing rolled and extrusion products.
Optifine coils were mounted on two casting lines and the necessary addition rates were measured by
taking Opticast samples during the casts.
The samples reflected the grain size close to centre of DC cast 400-mm thick ingots. On each casting line, the total amount in each cast is about 60 to 80 tonnes to produce five ingots. The results showed it was possible to reduce the grain refiner addition rate to 0.15kg/t for most alloys. In the case of AA 5182 the addition was reduced from 0.77kg/t to 0.15kg/t – a reduction of 81%. For some AA 3000 series alloys the addition rate could be reduced to as low as 0.1kg/t.
Trimet – Germany
A project has been undertaken at Trimet Aluminium SE to improve grain refinement of extrusion alloys. Tests predicted that grain refiner addition rate could be reduced by 88% and the results of the subsequent R&D and production tests confirmed this.
However, the actual addition rate used for the trial was 0.16kg/t representing a reduction of 68%.
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.
The first objective was to demonstrate the ability of Optifine to achieve a minimum 50% reduction in grain refiner addition compared with the standard TiBAl grain refiner. In the actual production trials it was shown that it was possible to reduce the addition rate by 70% to 0.66kg/t and subsequently the casthouse has fully converted to using Optifine.
Click the PDF publication below to find out more.
