Aluminium pioneer Alcoa Corporation announced this week the completion of a new aluminium recycling furnace at its plant in Mosjøen, Norway that utilizes power derived from renewable resources.
Alcoa says this is the firm’s largest investment in recycling infrastructure to date. The new aluminium recycling furnace, which is a collaboration between Alcoa and German metals trader MMG Aluminium, will not only save the company on energy costs, it will also continue the objective of the infinite recyclability of aluminium.
The new aluminium recycling furnace will use aluminium chips and shavings compressed into briquettes supplied by MMG Aluminium. The induction furnace at Mosjøen will melt the feedstock into aluminium that will be used in various low-carbon aluminium and aluminium alloy products produced there.
Guenter Strobel, the CEO and Founder of MMG Aluminium said in a press release that the new aluminium recycling furnace is the product of a long and lucrative partnership with Alcoa.
“We have been working with the plant in Mosjøen for more than 15 years, and we are happy to see our long and steady relationship grow with an increase in the site’s recycling capabilities. We see Alcoa as the right partner for this project, which combines green energy to power a new furnace with the high-end quality standard of the products that we get from Alcoa Mosjøen.”
Alcoa says that the new aluminium recycling furnace will cut its carbon emissions by 4,400 metric tons per annum, or the equivalent of removing about one thousand vehicles with internal-combustion engines from the roads.
The aluminium from the new induction furnace will be used in Alcoa’s Sustana line of low-carbon aluminium products. Included in the Sustana line is EcoDura, which features a recycled aluminium content of at least 50 percent, and EcoLum, which is produced with carbon emissions of less than 4.0 CO2e per metric ton of aluminium.