Novelis Inc., a leading sustainable aluminium solutions provider and world leader in aluminium rolling and recycling, announced that it has successfully tested using hydrogen fuel to power a recycling furnace at its UK plant in Latchford, Warrington.
With safety as the top priority of the hydrogen pilot project, several series of tests were conducted by blending different percentages of hydrogen with natural gas (30%-100%) to evaluate the impact on existing infrastructure, and equipment compatibility. During the trial campaign, several hundred tonnes of 3000 series scrap aluminium alloy were remelted and cast into sheet ingots. In addition, all relevant parameters were measured to assess any impact on the product, process, operating environment, and environmental emissions.
Further downstream processing, including rolling and finishing, will be now completed at other Novelis plants in Europe to establish the real ‘end-to-end’ parameters of a hydrogen-based, recycled alloy production process.
The demonstration project at Novelis Latchford is part of the UK government’s Industrial Fuel Switching Competition programme. Supported with a grant of £4.6 million, as part of the £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio and the wider regional HyNet project.
Photo of Novelis
Press release https://tinyurl.com/5fx7v6mt
