Alcore produces aluminium fluoride samples from dross; Eyes at building first commercial processing plant next year

Alcore Limited, 87 per cent-owned chemical refining subsidiary of ASX-listed Australian Bauxite, has reportedly produced aluminium fluoride samples from aluminium smelter waste known as dross in its recent test work by using proprietary technology. The company hopes to become the first domestic supplier of aluminium fluoride, an essential raw material in aluminium smelting.

According to the report, Alcore has developed a two-stage process to produce aluminium fluoride from a combination of dross and aluminium hydroxide. Incorporating dross into the mix, Alcore estimates the average base-line operating costs of aluminium fluoride production to decrease from A$1,080 per tonne to A$800 per tonne.

Alcore says Australian aluminium smelters rely primarily on imported aluminium fluoride. In the last 12 months, Australia’s aluminium fluoride imports from China alone totalled more than 20,000 tonnes, averaging a purchase price of US$ 1,180 per tonne, said Alcore.

Aluminium smelter waste or dross is a waste by-product that forms on the top of molten aluminium in casting furnaces. Since long, Alcore had been investigating the by-product as a possible feed material for the production of aluminium fluoride, given it involves relatively lower cost.

The company has successfully produced some laboratory-scale samples of near 100 cent aluminium fluoride, each of which has a chemical and physical composition in comparison with typical commercial aluminium fluoride specifications.  The samples also contain significantly lower levels of impurities than the raw dross.

Alcore is hoping to build its first commercial processing plant for aluminium fluoride production at the Bell Bay industrial precinct in northern Tasmania, with an estimated CAPEX of A$20 million. The initial production capacity will be 10,000 tonnes of aluminium fluoride a year, once constructed sometime next year.