UC RUSAL introduces Clean Soderberg at IrkAZ

UC RUSAL, a leading global aluminium producer, announces the launch of the Clean Soderberg project at its Irkutsk aluminium smelter (IrkAZ).

According to the project, the smelter’s Potlines 1, 3 and 4 will be converted to the Clean Soderberg technology (IrkAZ has four operational potlines, numbers 1, 3, 4 and 5. Potline 5 was commissioned in 2009 and had initially been designed to run on the pre-bake technology, not Soderberg). The general goal of the project, which is scheduled to run until 2020, is to cut air emissions by 30% and improve of the overall environmental performance of the smelter.

The current stage of the project involves development of basic design documents, estimation of efficiency of the proposed dry gas scrubbers, and consideration of various technical and engineering solutions such as automatic feeding of raw materials to reduction cells.

‘Clean Soderberg is one of our priority modernisation projects. This technology drastically reduces emissions of pot gases into the atmosphere, increases the energy efficiency of smelting, and reduces manual labour,’ said Victor Mann, RUSAL’s Technical Director.

The environmentally-friendly technology is a unique in-house project of the Company’s Engineering and Technology Centre (ETC). It brings a new approach to how the pot itself is designed, and, most importantly, to the type of anode paste it consumes. The new paste is a colloid material with a low content of pitch – the key source of tarry emissions. Also, the modernised gas removal system improves the pot’s sealing to reduce pot gas emissions.

Officially, the Clean Soderberg research project was opened in 2005. Aside from ItkAZ, the technology is already being implemented at RUSAL’s smelters in Krasnoyarsk and Bratsk, with two potrooms at the Novokuznetsk smelter next in line.

The total cost of this modernisation project (from 2010 to 2020) is estimated at USD122 mln.