Rio Tinto to install carbon-free aluminum smelting cells in Canada

Global mining and metals company Rio Tinto has revealed plans to install carbon-free aluminum smelting cells at its Arvida smelter in Québec, making use of the first technology license issued by Elysis, its joint venture with Pittsburgh-based aluminum producer Alcoa.

Rio Tinto, which has headquarters in London and Melbourne, Australia, will design, engineer and build a demonstration plant equipped with 10 pots operating at 100 kiloamperes—a similar size to those operating a smaller-scale commercial smelters, Alcoa says—and the plant will be owned by a new joint venture in which Rio Tinto and the Québec government, through Investissement Québec, will invest $179 million and $106 million, respectively, as equity partners.

“This investment will further strengthen Rio Tinto’s industry-leading position in low-carbon, responsible aluminum in North America with our hydro-powered smelters and our recycling capacity,” Rio Tinto Aluminum Chief Executive Jérôme Pécresse says. “Becoming the first to deploy the Elysis carbon-free smelting technology is the next step in our strategy to decarbonize and grow our Canadian aluminum operations.

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“In addition to delivering even lower-carbon primary aluminum for our customers, this investment will allow Rio Tinto to build its expertise on installing and operating this new technology, while the Elysis joint venture continues its research and development work to scale it up to its full potential.”

The new facility will use the same technology Rio Tinto says has been successfully demonstrated at the Elysis Industrial Research and Development Center in Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean, Québec, adding that the pilot operation will be a “critical step” in its journey toward full-scale industrialization of Elysis technology.

Rio Tinto and Alcoa jointly announced the Elysis process in early 2018 and, at the time, said it was a “revolutionary process” to make aluminum that produces oxygen and eliminates all direct greenhouse gas emissions from the traditional smelting process.

As previously reported by Recycling Today, the zero-carbon concept is based on using a substitute for the carbon blocks used to separate aluminum chemically.

The new demonstration plant will reportedly have the capacity to produce up to 2,500 metric tons of commercial quality aluminum per year without direct greenhouse gas emissions, with first production aimed for 2027. The site will be located adjacent to the existing Arvida smelter, allowing the use of the current alumina supply and casting facilities.

“Elysis is a truly disruptive technology for the industry and it’s thanks to Québec expertise that we are the first in the world to produce GHG-free aluminum,” says Pierre Fitzgibbon, Québec minister of economy, innovation and energy, minister for regional economic development and minister for the metropolis and the Montreal region.

“This is a technological innovation with unprecedented benefits for our aluminum sector, which remains an undisputed world leader.”

To support the industrial demonstration, Alcoa will manufacture the proprietary Elysis anodes and cathodes at the Alcoa Technical Center near Pittsburgh, which includes installing and operating new equipment. The company anticipates benefiting from the learnings of this phase of demonstration and expects to apply them to future phases in Elysis development.

Alcoa will have the option to purchase up to 40 percent of the aluminum produced over the first four years at the Arvida demonstration plant through an offtake agreement, which the company says will allow its customers to benefit from the Elysis carbon-free electrolytic process early in the technology development cycle.

“Since inventing the aluminum smelting process in 1886, which is still in use today, Alcoa has continued to create transformational technologies to improve our industry,” Alcoa President and CEO William F. Oplinger says. “We are proud to progress the technology initially developed at our technical center to its next phase within the Elysis partnership.

“Aluminum plays a critical role in the world’s energy transition and decarbonization efforts; with the Elysis technology, the smelting of this important metal can also be done without direct carbon emissions.”