ABx Group’s subsidiary ALCORE has secured full funding to go ahead with its hydrogen fluoride pilot plant in Tasmania. The plant, planned for the ALCORE Technology Centre beside Rio Tinto’s aluminium smelter in Bell Bay, will demonstrate a process to extract hydrogen fluoride from the by-products of aluminium smelting. This is indeed the next major step in ALCORE’s effort to commercialise a technology that has been under development for several years.
ALCORE secured the lease for the Bell Bay facility in early 2025, giving it a 500 square meter industrial site directly adjacent to the smelter that will provide the by-product feedstock. The project’s financial base was further strengthened by a conditional loan from the Tasmanian Government and federal support through the Modern Manufacturing Initiative.
ABx CEO Mark Cooksey said, “We are enthusiastic about completing the hydrogen fluoride pilot plant as soon as possible”. describing the underlying process as a “world-leading technology” capable of converting smelter bath into high-value products. In addition to hydrogen fluoride, ALCORE sees growing opportunities to produce higher-value fluorochemicals, including rare earth fluorides.
Hydrogen fluoride produced from the pilot plant could become a feedstock for aluminium fluoride, refrigerants, fluoropolymers, battery chemicals and components used in semiconductors and solar cell manufacturing.
Equipment for the pilot plant was ordered in April 2025, with delivery and assembly scheduled for the first quarter of 2026. Commissioning is targeted for the third quarter of the same year.
If the schedule holds, the Bell Bay plant could become the first facility in Australia to produce hydrogen fluoride from recycled smelter waste. This development would not only reduce reliance on imported fluorochemicals but also enhance the circularity of the nation’s aluminium sector. ABx maintains that the project has the potential to anchor a new fluorochemical industry domestically, building on a process designed to minimise waste and transform a long-standing smelter disposal challenge into an economic opportunity.
Also read: The World of Aluminium Extrusions – Industry Forecast to 2032
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