Avaliação de degradação em marcadores para rastreamento de material metalúrgico via fluorescência de raios-X

Abstract

The present work appears with the intention of developing and analyzing a chemical marking identified by x-ray fluorescence (XRF) for aluminum power cable (Al), which should remain in the material after it is subjected to a process of re-melting and degradation, simulating real-life conditions that the material will be exposed. This work aims to hinder the stealing of power cables, and it is possible to identify stolen cables after an attempt to recycle, with re-melting, and / or over time, as weathering degradation. Thus, to obtain the coating, a solution composed by polymer resin as solvent and 2% of Silver (Ag) was used like solute. FRX analyzes were performed before the coating was applied, proving that no significant amount of silver was present before the material was coated by the marker and the analysis was carried out after the end of the reflow and degradation process on the coated materials. demonstrating the permanence of the coating after the tests on the specimens. This coating was applied appropriately, with the aid from one clean brush in the test samples. The material constituted by naked aluminum cable was subjected to the reflow process, whereas the aluminum insulated polymer cable was exposed to the test to simulate the degradation process. The coating with 2% of Ag showed to be efficient in its object, make possible identifiable silver peaks in the spectrogram of energy in the specimens at the end of the test that were subjected.