cheap aluminum from rocks and sun
Alusol is developping technologies to produce aluminum from rocks and sun. Aluminum is one of the largest electricity consumer. One third of its price comes from electricity, but thanks to solar panels getting cheaper every year, we can slash the production price and reduce production to a simple resilient system.
Aluminum is a great metal. It is lightweight, easy-to-work, corrosion resistant, abundant and great at conducting electricity. The metal is used extensively in construction (frames and roofing), transportation (car panels), packing (soda cans), electricity (cables). Even though its market is 100 billion dollar a year, it remains an underutilized metal because of its (relatively) high price compared to steel.
Aluminum supply chain also poses a security threat as 60% of the primary aluminum is produced in China.
Aluminum is a recent metal only being discovered in the 19-century. Its production doesn't rely on the primitive carbo-thermal reduction like steel, but needs an electrical current to extract the aluminum from its the raw material alumina.
Hall-Heroult reaction is the most common production process, but its high temperature poses a problem when solar panels are used as electricity source. That's why we use the Ørsted reaction, which, despite its many advantages, only became economicaly viable recently.
Al2O3 + 3.Cl2 + 3.CO --[heat]--> 2.AlCl3 + 3.CO2
2.AlCl3 --[electricity]--> 2.Al + 3.Cl2
The reaction was developped and used industrially by Alcoa in the 70s. Their technical exploration and the released informations greatly reduce the technical risk in choosing a non-standar process.
If you have questions, just send us an e-mail at : contact [at] alusol.fr