special - ALUMINIUM-Nachrichten – ALU-WEB.DE

ALUMINIUM SMELTING INDUSTRY
The ‘AP Technology’ smelter of the future
The economical, energy efficient and environmentally safe solution for primary aluminium production
S. Fraysse, J.-M. Jolas, F. Charmier and O. Martin, Rio Tinto Alcan
An efficient smelter solution is made up
of many technological buildings blocks.
The degree of interaction between the
blocks is quite high and can be complex.
Rio Tinto Alcan has not only continuously
developed and optimised these blocks;
over the years, it has also developed a
global approach to its smelter solution.
The global approach, code named
Global Smelter Design (GSD), is used to
design the smelter of the future, building
global and coherent solutions based on a
functional and cross-cutting view of the
plant. The approach has been made even
more relevant by new available technologies
and products in fields as varied as
automation, robotics, data processing,
environmental expertise, innovative civil
works and new materials.
Global smelter design builds upon the
first-in-class AP Technology processes
and in particular, reduction cells to optimise
global development of the smelter
solution.
use the same generic cell equipment:
• AP6X cell, the benchmark of cell
productivity
• APXe, operating at low energy
consumption and the benchmark
environmental performance.
These two versions will make it possible to deliver
optimal solutions for greenfield projects
starting in the next few years.
The first APXe cell was started in December
2010 and has already delivered very
promising results: after less than one year of
operation, the 12.3 kWh/kg target has been
achieved with very low fluoride emission and
at particularly low gas suction rates [1].
More ambitious targets are already planned
for the coming months. Some of the innovative
solutions developed on the APXe cell can also
be deployed in existing aluminium smelters
in order to reduce their energy consumption
and environmental footprint.
An industrial demonstration of AP6X
Platform – Jonquiere, Quebec: The Rio Tinto
board of directors approved the AP60 Phase
Reduction cells to support the
existing assets optimisation
and the smelters of the future
The team which has supplied technologies to
a large number of aluminium smelter projects
over the last 40 years has had a unique opportunity
to develop and industrialise the best
cells to meet the greatest constraints and challenges.
The technical challenge of low energy: After
125 years of operation, Hall-Héroult process
cell productivity has improved dramatically
through the development of high-amperage
cells. However, improvement in energy efficiency
levelled off after the seventies. In the
coming decades, the challenge of massive demand
for aluminium in an energy-constrained
future calls for the development of low-energy
cell designs.
With the different AP cell platforms, Rio
Tinto Alcan proposes a comprehensive suite
of solutions able to take up this challenge and
to adapt to changing market trends. This offer
is based on two platforms, AP6X-APXe and
AP4X.
AP6X – APXe platform: Rio Tinto Alcan
has developed two new cell technologies that
AP Technology cells
AP Technology, sites in operation and under construction
© Rio Tinto Alcan
24 ALUMINIUM · 1-2/2013