ALCOA’S global refining research and development team based at its Kwinana alumina refinery has received its third award in the past year for new technology that reduces the company’s energy use.
The Technology Delivery Group, or TDG as it is known, employs almost 80 staff, and is believed to be the largest gathering of industrial scientists and engineers in Western Australia.
Since 1968, the TDG has been developing innovative equipment, processes and technologies to enable cleaner and more efficient production at Alcoa refineries around the world.
The TDG was awarded the inaugural Australasian Industrial Research Group medal for a new technology that removes an impurity known as ‘oxalate’ from the alumina refining process.
To avoid the need for oxalate disposal, the technology allows for the oxalate to be converted into a useful material, such as sodium carbonate, which is then put back into the refining process.
The technology has the potential to consume all of the nearly 200 metric tones of oxalate removed each day by Alcoa’s nine refineries around the world.
TDG research chemist Amanda Tilbury said she believed the technology was the first of its kind to be used in this type of industrial application.
“The alternative oxalate destruction technique is very expensive and energy intensive, so this new process is saving Alcoa millions of dollars while at the same time reducing our energy use,” Dr Tibury said.
Last year, the technology also won the WA engineering excellence award (environment category) and the Australian government engineering innovation award at the Australian Engineering Excellence Awards.
The new technology has already been implemented at Alcoa’s Kwinana refinery and is soon to be implemented at its Pinjarra and Wagerup refineries.
It is expected to save the Kwinana refinery around $US1.6 million in energy costs annually and the Pinjarra refinery, $US1.2 million.
