Novelis to trial use of hydrogen in recycling furnaces

Atlanta-based aluminum recycling and rolling company Novelis Inc. says its Latchford plant in the United Kingdom has been awarded 4.6 million pounds sterling ($5.8 million) to establish hydrogen burning trials as part of the U.K. government’s 55 million pound ($69.9 million) Industrial Fuel Switching Competition, which is part of the 1 billion pound ($1.27 billion) Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP) and the wider regional HyNet project.

Novelis joined HyNet in 2017 and says it has been supporting the development of the regional infrastructure project as well as conducting its own technical feasibility studies on the use of hydrogen as a direct replacement for natural gas.

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“Switching to renewable energy sources is a key initiative to advance on our journey toward carbon-neutral production,” Novelis Executive Vice President and President of Novelis Europe Emilio Braghi says. “Besides decarbonizing our own facility, this collaboration drives the industrial decarbonization of the whole North-West region in U.K.”

With the recently awarded grant by the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero, Novelis’ Latchford plant will test the use of hydrogen on one of its recycling furnaces in a demonstration phase in 2024.

“We are proud to be one of the pioneers using hydrogen within the aluminum industry and that these trials at Latchford will additionally advance research on the viability of integrating hydrogen power in our recycling operations around the world,” Novelis Latchford Plant Manager Allan Sweeney says.

The trial has been set up in collaboration with Progressive Energy, an independent U.K. energy company, and requires the installation of new burners and regenerators—both capable of operating with hydrogen or a blended hydrogen/gas input—and replacing the furnace lining material with one suitable for hydrogen.

Novelis says that depending on the final configuration, replacing natural gas with hydrogen to feed the remelting furnace could reduce CO₂ emissions by up to 90 percent compared with using the same amount of natural gas.

“Decarbonizing our melting processes is a critical lever to achieving our sustainability goals of reducing our carbon footprint by 30 percent by 2026 and being carbon neutral by 2050 or sooner,” Novelis Vice President of Sustainability Suzanne Lindsay-Walker says.

In addition to its contribution to HyNet, Novelis says its global research and development teams also are investigating the ability to use plasma, electricity and biomass to power its manufacturing operations.