Yeast for bakery, AlF3 in aluminium smelter stands equal: Ian Levy, ABx Group

The aluminium smelters entail a raw material that enables the perfect chemical balance through the complicated procedure of converting alumina to aluminium metal.

The booming aluminium sector of Australia primarily relies on China to keep the smelters running. The nation is the largest aluminium-producing region without a domestic AIF3 production capacity.

Ian Levy, the Executive Director of ABx Group stated, “The federal government appreciated the importance of AIF3 post-war when it created Comalco, now owned by Rio Tinto.”

“Currently some smelters are experiencing significant challenges because of container shipping delays for chemicals and other specialist raw materials,” says Levy.

“Imagine a bakery without the smallest thing: yeast. Without it, you can’t make the bread. It’s the same for AlF3 in smelters.”

The 87% owned subsidiary of ABx, Alcore Technology is warming up an ambitious plan to build an AIF3 plant in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley, nearing Rio Tinto’s Bell Bay smelter.

The plan of Alcore towards the production of AIF3 is by using ‘spent bath’, a by-product generated from the smelting process itself, as around half of this bath-waste is fluorine, a perfect source of AIF3.

On the contrary, mostly the traditional AIF3 is procured more exorbitantly from fluorspar, a purple crystal that has much other industrial and ornamental utilization.

While answering on the reason, why no-one else has apprehended on to spent bath as a cheaper and greener feedstock for AIF3 production? Levy said, “The answer lies with Alcore’s know-how, developed under the auspices of chemical engineer and Alcore CEO Dr Mark Cooksey.”

“The process is innovative, requiring multiple steps with the right amount of temperature, pressure and acidity levels.”

Presently, AIF3 fetches $US1000-1800 a tonne, but current costs stretch up to $US1500/tonne as the cost of traditional fluorspar is rising. However, by utilising waste from mainland smelters as well as Bell Bay, ABx expects production costs of $US650-900 per tonne and a long-term average price of $US1200 per tonne.

Levy added, “During negotiations with customers none has mentioned price as a key factor. We have a lot of support from western country smelters, they are all keen for us to perfect the technology and help them out.”