Alcoa Announces Agreement for Industrial-Scale Demonstration of ELYSIS™ Carbon-Free Fusion Technology

On June 28, 2024, Alcoa Corporation announced further advancements in ELYSIS technology, with Rio Tinto planning to launch the first industrial-scale demonstration of this breakthrough technology. The technology eliminates all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the traditional smelting process and produces oxygen as a byproduct.

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Established in 2018, ELYSIS is a technology partnership between Alcoa and Rio Tinto aimed at advancing technology, which was first developed at the Alcoa Technical Center (ATC) outside of Pittsburgh. Rio Tinto’s demonstration project will take place in Arvida in Quebec, Canada, and will include 10 ELYSIS melting vessels operating at 100 kiloamperes (kA), a size similar to those operating in smaller-scale commercial foundries.

Alcoa has the right to purchase up to 40% of the metal produced from the Arvida demonstration project, which will allow Alcoa customers to benefit from ELYSIS’s carbon-free electrolytic process early in the technology development cycle. The target for first production is 2027.

“Since inventing the aluminum smelting process in 1886, which is still in use today, Alcoa has continued to create transformative technologies to improve our industry,” said William F. (Bill) Oplinger, chairman and chief executive officer of Alcoa Corporation.

“We are proud to advance the technology initially developed in our technical center to its next phase within the ELYSIS partnership. Aluminum plays a critical role in the global energy transition and decarbonization efforts; with ELYSIS technology, smelting this important metal can also be done without direct carbon emissions.

To support the industrial demonstration, Alcoa will manufacture the proprietary ELYSIS anodes and cathodes at the ATC site, which will include the installation and operation of new equipment. Alcoa plans to take advantage of the lessons learned from this demonstration phase and intends to apply them to future phases of ELYSIS development. The metal produced using the ELYSIS process will further enhance Alcoa’s low-carbon products already on the market, such as the Sustana™ product line.

As a technology provider, ELYSIS retains full ownership of the intellectual property of its proprietary technology.