Abstract
Many base metals, such as iron, copper and aluminum, are being used in society and are accumulating in huge amounts. They contain alloying elements, except for some of the electric lead materials like copper wire. This situation strongly indicates to us that a contamination problem, whereby base metals by alloying elements or the loss of alloying elements during base metal recycling, is about to occur in the near future. In order to minimize this problem, information on the flow of alloying elements, or impurities, is crucial in designing effective recycling processes for base metals and for saving rare metals as alloying elements. This paper deals with some of the results found in the substance flow analysis of rare metals as alloying elements, together with the bulk material flow of steel products.
