Alcoa Corp. (NYSE: AA) today unveiled a technology roadmap to
support the Company’s vision to reinvent the aluminum industry for
a sustainable future.
The technologies in Alcoa’s roadmap, including a new,
proprietary post-consumer scrap recycling process, have the
potential to decarbonize a significant portion of the upstream
aluminum supply chain and provide a competitive advantage in a
carbon-constrained world.
Materials regarding the technologies are included with other
information available on the Company’s website related to Investor
Day, which includes a live question and answer session at 9 a.m.
EST on Tuesday, November 9, 2021.
The roadmap, which aligns with the Company’s Purpose to “Turn
Raw Potential into Real Progress,” includes three key programs:
- The Refinery of the Future, which aims to both reduce the
capital cost of developing a refinery and enable decarbonization of
the alumina refining process. Alcoa would use a combination of
processes and technologies that are under development, including
mechanical vapor recompression and electric calcination to develop
this future-focused design.
- The ASTRAEA™ metal purification process developed by Alcoa for
recycling post-consumer, aluminum scrap into high-purity aluminum.
The process could create an entirely new value chain to
economically produce aluminum of a quality that far exceeds the
purity of the commercial-grade aluminum produced in a smelter.
- The ELYSIS™ joint venture technology that eliminates all
greenhouse gases from the traditional smelting process. The
breakthrough process uses next-generation electrode design and
proprietary materials first developed at the Alcoa Technical Center
and emits pure oxygen as a byproduct at a lower operating and
capital cost than conventional technology.
“Our technology roadmap represents an array of next-generation
solutions that could significantly reduce emissions across the
upstream value chain and concurrently generate significant
stockholder value,” said Alcoa President and CEO Roy Harvey. “Our
Refinery of the Future design and the ELYSIS zero carbon smelting
technology, as just two examples, not only aim to reduce costs and
improve efficiency in aluminum production, but target complete
reduction of greenhouse gas generation from their respective
production processes.”
Harvey continued: “Alcoa developed the aluminum industry more
than 135 years ago, and that legacy of innovation motivates us to
help create a better future for tomorrow – one where we are
leveraging our products, processes, and people to realize our
vision to reinvent the aluminum industry for a sustainable
future.”
The technology roadmap also helps support Alcoa’s pathway to
reaching its ambition to achieve net zero greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions by 2050 across its global operations, including Scope 1
and Scope 2 emissions.
The ASTRAEA technology: Enabling a new value chain to create
high purity aluminum
Alcoa has developed a patented process to purify any
post-consumer aluminum scrap into a purity level of P0101,
surpassing the purity of P1020 aluminum that is produced at any
commercial smelter. Today, there is a vast supply of aluminum scrap
that can only be used for limited applications due its combination
of impurities.
As feedstock for this process, Alcoa is targeting Zorba auto
shred scrap as a raw material. Today, there are no commercially
available processes to strip this scrap of trace metals and bring
it to the suitable purity for most rolling or extrusion
applications. Alcoa’s ASTRAEA process is the first and only
technology that can purify this low-value scrap.
By converting this low-value, aluminum scrap into high purity
aluminum, the ASTRAEA process enables manufacturers to blend with
lower-purity scrap, significantly increasing the pool of
post-consumer scrap that can be used as a raw material once more.
It also allows some specialty aerospace and defense applications to
use scrap, which would be a first for those industries.
The Refinery of the Future: Targeting zero-carbon emissions
alumina refining
Alcoa’s Refinery of the Future program will use a host of
technologies and processes to design a refinery that lowers capital
intensity, eliminates carbon emissions, and addresses other
industry challenges, including reducing or eliminating bauxite
residue. From the environmental perspective, it will be designed
around two technologies – mechanical vapor recompression (MVR) and
electric calcination, which allows for a self-enclosed calciner
operating environment that captures steam and allows the calciner
to be connected to a renewable-powered electric grid. The
technology also retains all the water from the original
feedstock.
When combined with a decarbonized grid, these two technologies
enable a pathway to a zero-emissions alumina refining system.
MVR is a renewable energy-powered process that recycles
low-pressure steam in the refining process, offering the potential
to reduce carbon emissions in alumina refining by up to 70 percent.
Alcoa is currently evaluating the application of this technology in
Australia with support from $11M grant from the Australian
Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). The process reduces water
consumption by up to 35 percent.
ELYSIS: Decarbonizing aluminum smelting
The ELYSIS joint venture is built around a zero-carbon smelting
technology invented by Alcoa that has the potential to
revolutionize how aluminum is made by removing all carbon dioxide
emissions from the traditional aluminum smelting process, while
lowering operating costs and improving productivity.
Last week, ELYSIS announced that it is now producing metal with
the carbon-free smelting process at its Industrial Research and
Development Center, using a full industrial design. The design is
similar in size to small, commercial smelting cells in operation
today. Also, metal produced from the ELYSIS process has been used
by companies such as Apple and Audi.
ELYSIS expects its technology can be offered for commercial
application as soon as 2024 with installation by smelting customers
possible approximately two years later. The joint venture intends
to operate a commercial-scale prototype of the technology in 2023,
and construction of prototype cells operating on an electrical
current of 450 kA currently underway. These cells are designed to
be used as a ‘drop-in’ replacement to retrofit existing smelters or
build new ones and can be scaled to other sizes as needed.
About Alcoa Corporation
Alcoa (NYSE: AA) is a global industry leader in bauxite,
alumina, and aluminum products, and is built on a foundation of
strong values and operating excellence dating back 135 years to the
world-changing discovery that made aluminum an affordable and vital
part of modern life. Since developing the aluminum industry, and
throughout our history, our talented Alcoans have followed on with
breakthrough innovations and best practices that have led to
efficiency, safety, sustainability, and stronger communities
wherever we operate.
Dissemination of Company Information
Alcoa intends to make future announcements regarding company
developments and financial performance through its website,
www.alcoa.com, as well as through press releases, filings with the
Securities and Exchange Commission, conference calls, and
webcasts.
Forward-Looking Statements
The session may contain statements that relate to future events
and expectations and as such constitute forward-looking statements
within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
of 1995. Forward-looking statements include those containing such
words as “anticipates,” “endeavors,” “working,” “potential,”
“ambition,” “develop,” “reach,” “believes,” “could,” “estimates,”
“expects,” “forecasts,” “goal,” “intends,” “may,” “outlook,”
“plans,” “projects,” “seeks,” “sees,” “should,” “targets,” “will,”
“would,” or other words of similar meaning. All statements by Alcoa
Corporation that reflect expectations, assumptions or projections
about the future, other than statements of historical fact, are
forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not
guarantees of future performance and are subject to known and
unknown risks, uncertainties, and changes in circumstances that are
difficult to predict. Although Alcoa Corporation believes that the
expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements are based
on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that these
expectations will be attained and it is possible that actual
results may differ materially from those indicated by these
forward-looking statements due to a variety of risks and
uncertainties. Additional information concerning factors that could
cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in
the forward-looking statements is contained in Alcoa Corporation’s
filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Alcoa
Corporation disclaims any obligation to update publicly any
forward-looking statements, whether in response to new information,
future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable
law.
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Investor Contact James Dwyer 412-992-5450
James.Dwyer@alcoa.com
Media Contact Jim Beck 412-315-2909 Jim.Beck@alcoa.com
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