Rio Tinto Canada has partnered with Lafarge Canada to recycle alumina, which is usually wasted at the former’s aluminum electrolysis potline plants in Saguenay-Lac-St Jean, Quebec, to produce cement.
According to a media release by Geocycle, a subsidiary of the cement maker, the product of this venture will be known as Alextra. It will replace alumina and silica inputs in the cement-making process at Lafarge’s Bath, Ontario plant where it plans to produce about 1mn mt of cement using the new product.
Rio Tinto operates four aluminum smelters in Quebec, which together produced 1.26mnt of aluminum and 1.52mn mt of alumina and specialty products in 2019.