Pathways to LOW-CARBON ALUMINA PRODUCTION

Join us for our upcoming webinar, presented by Professor Gus Nathan (HILT CRC Research Director & Director, Centre for Energy Technology, The University of Adelaide) and Dr Woei Saw (HILT CRC Senior Lecturer, The University of Adelaide) who will discuss the pathways that are emerging as being among the most prospective for decarbonising alumina production.

Alumina production is among the industrial processes that is challenging to abate due to the lack of access to low-carbon energy sources at sufficient scale and affordability, and also the lack of commercially proven technology to utilise it. Alumina production comprises both a lower temperature digestion/purification process and a high temperature calcination one, with the temperature and details of the former tailored to each ore resource and the latter being undertaken in a range of types of high temperature reactor, depending on the plant, such as fluidised beds and flash reactors.

Conversion of these processes to operate on emerging low-carbon energy sources such as hydrogen or renewable electricity will require significant changes to the plant and in turn, require significant capital investment. There is also a large amount of uncertainty about the how the relative cost of the various emerging low-carbon energy sources will evolve into the future. However, there is also potential to generate new opportunities for efficiency improvements from such conversions, which has potential to mitigate these costs. In addition, the direct use of heat generated from concentrated solar thermal energy technology also has potential to be competitive.

This webinar provides an excellent opportunity to hear the current status in the development of solutions and will explore the prospective pathways forward.