United Company RUSAL has successfully launched test production of its colloidal anode paste. The paste is a key component of a new project aimed at developing a unique and entirely environmentally harmless aluminum production technology. The project is expected to require a total of $25m worth of investments.

The spokesperson for the company reports the main idea behind the project that is being implemented by UC RUSAL’s Engineering and Construction division is the creation of a perfect Soederberg reduction cell that would affect the environment as little as possible, use raw materials very efficiently, and could be as productive as the pre-baked anode technology. The new know-how is built upon the colloidal anode technology as well as a whole range of other technological and technical innovations that are expected to help the Soederberg technology become comparable with the pre-bake one in terms of efficiency.

The R&D and testing stage has been carried out at Krasnoyarsk smelter’s testing site since 2006; the colloidal paste test production was launched in April 2008. At the moment, colloidal anodes are employed at twenty of the plant’s reduction cells. After the testing has been completed successfully, the technology is to be implemented in five of the plant’s potrooms and, gradually, (that is, in 2010-2015), at all of UC RUSAL’s enterprises that use the Soederberg technology.

The new colloidal anode technology is believed to lay the foundation for the environmental upgrading of Krasnoyarsk and Bratsk aluminum smelters - the world’s largest aluminum producers at the moment. Later on, this technology is to be introduced at aluminum smelters based in Irkutsk, Novokuznetsk, and Volgograd in a single powerful effort.

After Krasnoyarsk aluminum smelter has switched to the new technology, its HF, fluoride, carbon oxide, and benzpyrene emissions are expected to drop from .7 to .24 kilograms per ton, from 1.62 to .6 kilograms per ton, from 78.9 to 53.5 kilograms per ton, and from .002 to .001 kilograms per ton, respectively. The benzpyrene emission level will thus come to the Russian legal standards as well as OSPAR 2010 recommendations.