A major disadvantage of recycling aluminum is that it takes significantly more energy to recycle scrap?

Question

aluminum than it does to extract new aluminum from its ore. True or False?

Answer 1

False.  The energy use in electrolytic reduction used in primary aluminum production is much greater than recycling old aluminum (secondary production).

Answer 2

False.

It takes 90% less energy to recycle aluminum than it takes to convert from ore because of the energy needed to fully transition aluminum from ore to it's more useable product.