Orbite technology expected to revolutionise alumina

The developer of a potentially market-changing alumina-producing technology Orbite Aluminae on Thursday said it had found a way to produce high-quality smelter-grade alumina (HGA) at a cost of about 40% less than that produced through traditional methods.

President and CEO Richard Boudreault told Mining Weekly Online that in its quest to “make unobtanium available”, Orbite had discovered a technique to produce HPA and a number of valuable by-products in an environment-friendly and economical way that no other producer had done before.

Orbite’s proprietary plant technology would produce HGA from aluminous clay, bauxite, fly ash and toxic red mud – without leaving waste.

He explained that Orbite was looking at ways to enter the expanding HPA market, but which did not require the same energy input the industry-standard method of purifying aluminous ore, known as the Bayer-process, had.

The traditional production of aluminium oxide, or alumina, resulted in a toxic by-product called red clay, which consists of silica, iron, magnesium and a mixture of rare-earth elements (REEs).

Boudreault explained that the company worked on refining its technology to produce smelter-grade alumina (SGA) from bauxite, and then make use of the resultant red clay to further reduce production costs.

“We developed a technique to split the ore into its constituent components, leaving us with a host of high-purity elements we could market,” he said.

The process, in its simplest form, revolved around the ore being held together by silica, being dissolved in a strong hydrogen chloride (HCl) solution, which then freed the other elements of iron, magnesium and sought-after REEs such gallium and scandium.

The process resulted in a pure grade of alumina, which would give Orbite a significant competitive advantage in the HPA market, which covets net margins of about 30%. Boudreault explained that the by-product elements are removed from the HCl when it is washed for reuse.

Boudreault said the fact that the company could extract REEs gallium and scandium was a bonus, owing to gallium being a sought-after substrate for use in light-emitting diode lights, and scandium being “the unobtanium”, owing to it being a form of hexagonal aluminium that is stronger and lighter than average aluminium and is increasingly finding applications in the aerospace industry.

INTELLECTUAL LEVERAGE

Boudreault explained there were 11 patent families protecting the company’s proprietary technologies across the globe.

If anyone wanted to produce HPA through one of the company’s technologies, Orbite would receive royalties. And, Boudreault pointed out that HPA produced by using its technique carried a distinct signature within the metal, which secured the company a virtual monopoly in the HPA market.

Orbite, which is currently constructing its first full-scale HPA plant in Quebec, believed its technology would place it apart as the only REE producer in the North Americas by a significant margin. Owing to it being able to produce HPA at much cheaper and the fact that it had comparatively negligible transportation costs to the North American market than other sources and because it did not leave polluting residues, the company had a significant upper-hand in the alumina market.

Orbite recently said refinements to the overall design of its plant had resulted in significant reductions in energy and water use, as well as operational- and capital-cost savings.

The company said that together with chemical process design specialist M&K, the final plant design incorporated best practices from the chemical industry, resulting in a 30% reduction in fossil fuel use and 60% less water consumption. The improved design would also result in reduced capital costs.

Meanwhile, French bank Natixis recently said the aluminium market was suffering from “chronic oversupply”, as expected supply cutbacks had failed to materialise and new capacity was coming on stream from China and the Middle East.

The company’s Toronto-listed stock on Thursday traded down 5.50% at C$2.75 apiece.