Alcoa Corporation (NYSE: AA) today announced further progress on ELYSIS technology with Rio Tinto’s plans to launch the first industrial-scale demonstration of the breakthrough technology, which eliminates all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the traditional smelting process and produces oxygen as a byproduct.
Established in 2018, ELYSIS is a technology partnership between Alcoa and Rio Tinto to advance technology first developed at the Alcoa Technical Center (ATC) outside of Pittsburgh. Rio Tinto’s demonstration project will occur at Arvida in Quebec, and includes 10 ELYSIS smelting pots operating at 100 kiloamperes (kA), a size similar to those operating at smaller-scale commercial smelters.
Alcoa has the right to purchase up to 40 percent of the metal produced from the demonstration at Arvida, allowing for Alcoa customers to benefit from ELYSIS’s carbon-free electrolytic process early in the technology development cycle. The target for first production is by 2027.
Said CEO Bill Oplinger, “Since inventing the aluminum smelting process in 1886, which is still in use today, Alcoa has continued to create transformational technologies to improve our industry. We are proud to progress the technology initially developed at our technical center to its next phase within the ELYSIS partnership. Aluminum plays a critical role in the world’s energy transition and decarbonization efforts; with the ELYSIS technology, the smelting of this important metal can also be done without direct carbon emissions.”
AA shares took on $1.08, or 2.8%, to open Friday at $39.90.
