Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO) said Wednesday it will team up with Japan’s Sumitomo to build a “first-of-a-kind” hydrogen plant in Australia, as it aims to cut carbon emissions from the alumina refining process at its Yarwun facility.
Rio (RIO) said the program 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 project involves construction of a hydrogen plant at the Yarwun refinery and the retrofit of refinery processing equipment; if successful, the program could pave the way for adoption of the technology at scale globally.
The company expects the plant will produce the equivalent of ~6K metric tons/year of alumina while reducing Yarwun’s carbon dioxide emissions by ~3K tons/year.
The companies moved forward with the pilot program after receiving A$32M in co-funding from the federal Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
Construction of the plant will start in 2024, and it is expected to become operational by 2025.
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