February 2019 - One has to consume energy to make anything. Metal manufacturing is one of the most energy intensive industries on the planet. It takes a great deal of foresight, planning and skilled execution to lower energy usage through the entire process chain for aluminum. The folks at Oslo-based Hydro have been thinking about how to do just that—and on how to commercialize and market the resultant products effectively.

Matt Aboud, vice president of Primary Metal at Hydro (pronounced Hee-dro), broke it all down by describing the launch of two new grades of billets, Hydro 75R and Hydro 4.0.

With 4.0, says Aboud, “We guarantee that this billet uses 4 kg of carbon dioxide in manufacturing, or less, in order to produce 1 kg of aluminum. That is from mining bauxite, refining the ore into alumina, to electrolysis converting to aluminum, the anode making process, then casting into billets. That includes all the transportation involved, all the steps in the value chain from mining to customer product.

Hydro's largest aluminum remelting operation in Europe is located in Clervaux, Luxembourg.

“That’s the lowest CO₂ [emissions] of any product in the primary aluminum world, coming from a smelter,” Aboud says. “This is where the industry has to go with the sustainability challenge. A key element is the source of your power. These billets are produced with hydroelectricity.”

Customers should be knowledgeable about the energy used in the metals production process, he says. “In some regions, producers don’t use the cleanest energy. Many customers are paying close attention to the carbon footprint. This is our effort to meet the sustainability challenge, and customers can rely on it.”

The new billets are certified by a third party company, DNV GL, a Norway-based international accreditation agency.

Hydro operates six smelters autonomously, five of which reside in Norway and each is powered by hydroelectricity. “Outside of our fully owned facility in Germany,” the other smelters Hydro operates are co-owned. “We are committed to producing aluminum in the most environmentally responsible way at those plants, too,” notes Aboud. “Hydro 4.0 is produced in a smelter, made from bauxite ore. It’s our answer to the challenge on the primary side.”

Post-consumer scrap

The second new billet product, 75R, is made from scrap. “That is a very different process,” says Aboud. “What 75R means is we certify that 75 percent of the content is from post-consumer, or end-of-life recycled aluminum. We have these capabilities thanks largely to our shredding and sorting operation in Dormagen, Germany.”

Remelting operations typically receive scrap that is not segregated. A building is torn down and all the material that made up that structure is commingled. “But you worry about the chemical composition after remelting. So to meet customer specifications, remelters mix in primary aluminum or scrap from fabricators.

“We must reliably and consistently meet customer specifications and we can do that with the Dormagen plant’s mechanical separation of material from a single pile,” Aboud says. “We are left with a clean package of aluminum, which we remelt and cast.”

Hydro has long strived to use a high amount of post-consumer scrap on the hot end. DNV certified that it has 75 percent post-consumer recycled content. “Hydro 75R is the aluminum with the most recycled content in the market; this product helps our customers with their own carbon challenge.” It is already sold to the downstream business, Hydro Building Systems, which markets the fact that its window systems and building facades use this product.”

Charging anodes at Hydro’s Høyanger, Norway, production facility.

Stewardship

There is a growing demand for products with low carbon emissions, says Aboud. Although it is only a fraction of Hydro’s total business at the moment, more customers are becoming aware of their CO₂ footprint and life cycle assessment—in automotive, packaging, building and construction.

“Hydro wants to be a good industry steward but there must be a commercial pull for it. That’s arriving at a critical mass and it is good to come in early, which helps us shape the demand,” he says.

Customers who have adopted the billets say it meets their own standards for performance and quality and has the added benefit of certifications.

The 75R billets are being produced in Hydro’s Luxembourg plant to date, but “we are investing in 75R at a second plant in Spain this year. Similar investments could later be made elsewhere,” according to Aboud. “We are doing this in phases.”

He acknowledges the road has been long to this point. “We talked about this for many years. But the timing had to be right for the launch.”

Meanwhile Hydro dedicated resources to tackle the sustainability challenge along the value chain, with one such example being a technology pilot project at its Karmøy smelter, “where we’ve developed aluminum production cells that have the world’s lowest energy consumption and smallest CO₂ footprint in the world.”

In other words, “75R and 4.0 are just two products within our holistic effort.” Aboud sees the benefits to being an integrated company. “With mining, smelters and scrap recycling facilities, we can certify our whole supply chain. And there is the potential for a closed loop system—the product put into market will eventually be scrapped and brought back to our remelters.”

A production worker at Hydro's billet casting and remelt facility in The Dalles, Oregon, prepares a chemical composition sample mid-cast.

Applications, branding

Among the applications for 4.0 and 75R is building and construction. “Our Building Systems group produces complete systems for the building envelope, including windows and doors, storefronts and curtain walls. For example, when you go to a big box store like Target or to a grocery store, you’ll see a sliding glass door—that glass is held in place by aluminum. The group takes the 75R product and extrudes and fabricates it into finished products marketed through its own brand—Wicline 75Max is branded using our Hydro 75R billet.”

According to Aboud, “We are not limited by market opportunities, we are limited by the fact that we have only so much production capacity. We will open more capacity this year. In Spain, we will have 25,000 tons of 75R billet capacity when running fully. We believe the market is growing enough to expand capacity.”

Hydro has market activities in 40 countries, 35,000 employees. 2017 revenues approached U.S. $12.8 billion. It produces 1.2 million metric tons of primary aluminum per year, and expects to increase its available output by 200,000 metric tons by 2025. MM