I. Copper replacement for refrigeration
Household appliances are one of the areas where copper consumption is relatively large. They are mainly used in magnetrons for microwave ovens, condenser heat-dissipation tubes for refrigerators, dry filters, capillary tubes for refrigeration systems, evaporators for domestic air conditioners, and internally threaded copper tubes for condensers. , indoor and outdoor machine connecting pipe, bearing for electric fan, single crystal copper wire for hi-fi audio and so on. However, with the tight supply and demand relationship of copper materials and the sharp rise in prices, the use of copper composite materials instead of pure copper products has become an important way to save copper, among which the important copper composite materials are copper-clad aluminum wires, aluminum-clad copper tubes, Copper and aluminum composite lines.
Aluminum and steel are popular materials to replace copper for air conditioning. At present, typical alternatives for copper materials include aluminum tube aluminum heat exchangers, aluminum parallel flow heat exchangers, copper clad aluminum tubes, aluminum-copper clad tubes, aluminum alloy tubes, aluminum globe valves, and aluminum enameled wires. Copper clad aluminum wire and so on.
There are many components in the piping systems of refrigerators and air conditioners that don't require copper as a substrate. It's just that these products haven't had to care about the cost of copper when they were born, and the manufacturing level of steel pipes and aluminum pipes at that time is far worse than that. Today, the technologies and products of the manufacturers of several typical alternatives currently receive great market attention.
In terms of refrigerators, two years ago, state-owned enterprises have successfully promoted the use of single-layer steel tubes for refrigerator condensers and anti-condensation tubes in the industry, reducing the diameter and wall thickness of pipelines, and replacing new materials for air-conditioning accessories. At present, the products promoted by the company to the industry are: steel-copper one-piece, aluminum-copper one-piece and all-aluminum indoor and outdoor machine connecting pipes, piping and auxiliary pipes; in the aluminum-copper one-piece and all-aluminum air-conditioning indoor and outdoor machine connecting pipes, piping and As regards auxiliary pipelines, it already has its own air-conditioning special aluminum melting formula.
Different from the above alternatives, a company in Qingdao uses a copper-aluminum composite structure instead of a copper pipe as a refrigeration circuit. The key technical problem of the copper-aluminum composite structure is the welding technology of thin-walled copper-aluminum tubes. The plug-in copper-aluminum welded joints used by the company solve this problem by welding the aluminum tubes using the resistance-pressure composite welding method. At present, domestic mainstream air-conditioning companies have applied air-conditioner copper-aluminum connecting pipes in batches. The maximum service life is more than 4 years. The probability of product leakage is less than 10 ppm , which fully meets the product design requirements.
An enterprise in Jiangsu uses pure copper as its internal surface. The outer surface of the pipe and the fins ( fins ) are made of aluminum alloy. After several years of research. Copper-aluminum composite pipe tensile strength, blasting strength, flaring rate, internal cleanliness, flattening, bending, anti-leakage and other indicators fully meet the standard requirements of air-conditioning two-tube. and. The use of copper-aluminum composite pipes can reduce the cost of each air conditioner by more than 120 yuan. The color stainless steel tubes developed by this company are made of 3003 aluminum alloy tubes and high-strength aluminum alloy nuts. After trials by several air-conditioners, they believe that they can replace pure copper tubes and copper joints for air-conditioning connecting tubes.
The small air-conditioning project led by the International Copper Association is based on the application of a 5mm or even finer diameter copper tube for room air conditioners. To reduce the cost of room air conditioners. The replacement of copper resources has become a common research topic at home and abroad.
Second, other raw material alternatives: quietly rise
In addition to refrigeration with copper alternatives. The application and substitution of other raw materials have also increased further.
With the development of aluminum material technology, aluminum magnet wire production technology and aluminum magnet wire application technology, aluminum magnet wire is gaining more and more recognition in the market. At present, the domestic electromagnetic wire is still dominated by copper wire, and in foreign countries, 10 years ago, the application of aluminum magnet wire has exceeded 10 %. In July 2005 , a foreign-funded company began researching and developing aluminum magnet wires and copper-clad aluminum magnet wires. In October 2005 formally produced aluminum magnet wire. In early 2006 , trial production of copper-clad aluminum magnet wire was successful. Currently. The company's annual output of aluminum magnet wire is 8,000 tons. The output of copper clad aluminum magnet wire is 600 tons, and the product is used in microwave oven transformers, television degaussing coils, and most home appliance motors. It is expected that in 2010 , an annual output of 20,000 tons of enamelled aluminum wire can be achieved.
At present, China has become a global producer of household appliances and the scale of production is still growing, which makes the demand for bulk raw materials in the home appliance industry huge. The demand for high-performance thin sheet, cold-rolled electrical steel sheets and hot-rolled pickling sheets in the household electrical appliance industry Will grow rapidly. According to incomplete statistics, in 2007 , the main household appliances used more than 5.7 million tons of steel. Non-ferrous metals and engineering plastics were used in excess of 1 million tons respectively. At the same time, the prices of raw materials have also remained high in recent years. The tight supply of raw materials and price issues have triggered the active replacement of raw materials for household appliances. Looking at the overall trend, these factors have pushed the company to improve product structure design so as to achieve the goal of reducing material consumption and saving costs.