Rio Tinto PLC and Sumitomo Corp said that they will build a first-of-a-kind hydrogen plant in Gladstone, Australia, as part of a A$111.1 million - around $74.6 million - programme aimed at lowering carbon emissions from the alumina refining process.
The programme is aimed at demonstrating the viability of using hydrogen in the calcination process, where hydrated alumina is heated to temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius.
The programme involves construction of a hydrogen plant at the refinery and the retrofit of refinery processing equipment.
The project will consist of construction of a 2.5-megawatt on-site electrolyser to supply hydrogen to the Yarwun refinery and a retrofit of one of Yarwun’s four calciners so it can operate at times with a hydrogen burner.
The trial is expected to produce the equivalent of about 6,000 tons of alumina per year while reducing Yarwun’s carbon dioxide emissions by about 3,000 tons per year.
Converting the entire plant to green hydrogen could reduce emissions by 500,000 tons per year, which is the equivalent of taking about 109,000 petrol-burning cars off the road.
Construction will start in 2024. The hydrogen plant and calciner are expected to be in operation by 2025.
Sumitomo Corp will own and operate the electrolyser at Yarwun site and supply the hydrogen to Rio Tinto directly. The electrolyser will have a production capacity of more than 250 tons of hydrogen annually.
Rio Tinto is committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 and has targets to reduce Scope 1 & 2 emissions to 50% of 2018 levels by 2030.
source: dpa
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