Emission of gases under high temperature after pouring molten metal into moulds, which contain the organic binder or other additives
(solvents or curing agent), may be an important factor influencing both on the quality of the produced castings, and on the state of
environment. Therefore, a comprehensive study of the emitted gases would allow to determine restrictions on the use of the moulding
sands in foundry technologies, eg. the probability of occurrence of casting defects, and identify the gaseous pollutants emitted to the
environment. The aim of the research presented in this paper was to determine the amount of gases that are released at high temperatures
from moulding sands bonded by biopolymer binder and the quantitative assessment of the emitted pollutants with particular emphasis on
chemical compounds: benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes (BTEX). The water-soluble modified potato starch as a sodium
carboxymethyl starch with low (CMS-NaL) or high (CMS-NaH) degree of substitution was a binder in the tested moulding sands.
A tests of gases emission level were conducted per the procedure developed at the Faculty of Foundry Engineering (AGH University of
Science and Technology) involving gas chromatography method (GC). The obtained results of the determination of amount of BTEX
compounds generated during the decomposition process of starch binders showed lower emission of aromatic hydrocarbons in comparison
with binder based on resin Kaltharz U404 with the acidic curing agent commonly used in the foundries.
In the paper, the research on the process of optimizing the carbon footprint to obtain the low-carbon products is presented. The optimization process and limits were analyzed based on the CFOOD project co-financed by the Polish Research and Development Agency. In the article, the carbon footprint (CF) testing methods with particular emphasis on product life cycle assessment (LCA) are discussed. The main problem is that the energy received from the energy-meters per the production stage is not directly represented in the raw data set obtained from the factory because many production line machines are connected to a single measurement point. In the paper, we show that in some energy-demanding production stages connected with cooling processes the energy used for the same stage and similar production can differ even 25-40%. That is why the energy optimization in the production can be very demanding.
Gas emission from casting moulds, cores and coatings applied for sand and permanent moulds is one of the fundamental reasons of casting defects occurrence. In the previous studies, gas emission was measured in two ways: normalized, in which the evolving gas volume was measured during heating of the moulding sand sample in a sealed flask, or by measuring the amount of gas from sand core (sample) which is produced during the pouring of liquid metal. After the pouring process the sand mould is heated very unequally, the most heated areas are layers adjacent to the liquid metal. The emission of gas is significantly larger from the surface layer than from the remaining ones. New, original method of measuring kinetics of gas emission from very thin layers of sand moulds heated by liquid metal developed by the authors is presented in the hereby paper. Description of this new method and the investigation results of kinetics of gas emission from moulding sand with furan and alkyd resin are shown. Liquid grey cast iron and Al-Si alloy were used as a heat source in the sand moulds. Comparison of the kinetics of gas emission of these two kinds of moulding sands filled with two different alloys was made. The momentary metal temperature in sand mould was assigned to the kinetics of gas emission, what creates a full view of the possibility of formation of casting defects of the gaseous origin. Moulding sand with alkyd resin is characterized by larger gas emission; however gases are emitted slower than in the case of moulding sands with furan resin. This new investigation method has a high repeatability and is the only one which gives a full view of phenomenon’s in the surface layer which determines quality of the casings. The obtained results are presented on several graphs and analyzed in detail. They have a great application value and can be used in the production of iron as well as light metal alloy castings.