Technology

Current refining of aluminium is done by the Hall-Heroult process using a large bath of molten cryolite salt, and utilises carbon anodes to reduce the aluminium from bauxite.

The process is expensive, uses large amounts of energy and releases carbon dioxide and perfluorocarbon (PFC’s i.e. CF4 and C2F6) emissions into the atmosphere. It is estimated that world wide the current refining of aluminium accounts for 100million tonnes of carbon emissions into the atmosphere annually and the industry is coming under increased political and legislative pressure as the world seeks greener solutions to protect our planet.

An inert anode can be used instead of the carbon anode and has the potential to be cheaper, improve productivity and totally remove the carbon and PFC emissions.Similar opportunities exist for other metals particularly titanium and niobium.

The IPCC third report strongly advocates the need for the metal industry to support and adopt this type of inert anode technology.