Constellium SE and TARMAC Aerosave jointly announce a major milestone in sustainable aerospace innovation: the successful recycling and remelting of aluminum from end-of-life aircraft into new, high-performance material suitable for future aerospace applications. This milestone highlights the potential of aluminum to support circular economy goals in aerospace, without compromising material performance. Following months of collaborative research and development, supported in particular by Airbus and ValoER, Constellium has successfully remelted aluminum recovered by TARMAC Aerosave from retired commercial aircraft, producing material that meets the stringent performance requirements for new aircraft manufacturing.
The next step will be to scale up this process for industrial application and to extend it to any aluminum alloy used in metallic aircraft, further demonstrating the full recyclability of end-of-life metallic airframes. Aluminum recycling uses only 5% of the energy required for primary production and emits 95% fewer CO2 emissions. Recycling also protects resources and reduces waste, making it a powerful lever for improving the sustainability of the aerospace industry.
As the sector intensifies efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, this full-circular model provides a compelling path forward for future innovation and sustainability.
