VIEWPOINT
What Is Low-Carbon Aluminium? by Wojciech Brozyna - MD of Aluprof UK
The production of prime aluminium has continued to take advantage of new technology to reduce energy consumption in its manufacture and its carbon emissions since aluminium became a commercially viable material in 1880 through the Hall–Héroult process. Energy consumption has been reducing on average by 1.2% per year over the last few decades, but in order to achieve a lowcarbon aluminium product, much more is needed. The quantity of recycled aluminium used globally, sometimes known as secondary production, has remained relatively constant at 31-33% since 2000, with 34% used in 2019 the highest share during this period. As aluminium has a high value, collection rates are typically high, in 2019, collection rates for aluminium were over 95% for all new scrap (preconsumer) and just over 70% for all old (postconsumer) scrap aluminium. We must continue to increase the collection of post-consumer scrap as it uses much less energy to recycle, just 10% that of primary aluminium. There are various producers of Aluminium billet across the globe, all of who supply some lowcarbon product, such as, EcoLum from Alcoa offering 4kg of CO 2 per single kg of aluminium production, ALLOW from RUSAL offering 4kg of CO 2 per single kg of aluminium production, CIRCAL 75R from Hydro offering 2.3kg of CO 2 per single kg of aluminium production and our own group company, LowCarbonKety from Grupa Kety offering 2,79kg of CO 2 per single kg of aluminium production. All of these low-carbon products are made up of up to 75% post-consumer scrap, approximately 10% pre-consumer scrap, together with a low content of primary aluminium and is then produced using renewable energy sources. The problem we have is that low-carbon aluminium products are costly and in short supply, so why is this? Referring back to the total recycled content of all aluminium supplied to meet the demand of 31-33% since 2000, we simply cannot get enough scrap to meet the demand. At a required total 85% recycled content (post and pre-consumer scrap) for this low-carbon aluminium, finding the recycled content is difficult. There are also other issues to consider when specifying low-carbon aluminium, such as it cannot be used when an anodised finish is required. Why do we have a shortage of scrap? As demand continues to grow for aluminium and products using aluminium last longer, there is simply not
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enough to meet demand. It could be stated that specifying a low-carbon aluminium for a project only takes recycled content away from another project, so on a global scale, there is no benefit. What is key here is that technology is moving rapidly to increase the use of renewable energy in the production of aluminium and to reduce or capture CO 2 during manufacture. We also must remember that we are not going to run out of the raw material to produce aluminium, as the raw material bauxite is the most abundant metal in the earth's crust. Here at Aluprof, we source one third of our aluminium extrusions from our group company, Grupa Kety, where we offer a low-carbon aluminium product and are working to further reduce carbon emissions. Two thirds of our aluminium extrusions supplied by Aluprof comes from other market sources. We can therefore offer specifiers any low-carbon product specifiers wish to use for their project, but this comes with the caveat of both possible cost implications and likely extended lead times for extrusions. Given the project requirements, should a requested low-carbon specification be achievable, then Aluprof can offer EPD (Environmental Product Declarations) to substantiate the source of the aluminium that Aluprof’s profiles will be supplied from. Extended lead times for products could impact the site programme, which in turn could incur additional carbon costs. On the other hand, some BREEAM credits could be available on a project by choosing low-carbon products, including aluminium. These issues highlight that every project is different and must be looked at in isolation. The key here is the need to get product suppliers involved at the early design stages to explore what is possible.
