Make primary aluminium with oxygen as the only exhaust. Today's smelters burn carbon anodes and release CO2 with every tonne; HalZero would remove those emissions from both electrolysis and anode baking.
Being verified at test scale in Porsgrunn, Norway; industrial pilot aimed for around 2030.
Updated 5 Dec 2023Checked 11 Oct0 updates this week
Alumina reacts with chlorine and carbon to form aluminium chloride. The CO2 this step makes is fed back into the reaction instead of vented.
Electricity splits aluminium chloride into molten aluminium and chlorine gas. No carbon anode is burned, unlike the Hall-Héroult cells used today.
The chlorine returns to the first step and the carbon is recycled, so the net output is aluminium plus oxygen.
| Spec | HalZero |
|---|---|
| Test facility investment | ~NOK 400 millionR (reported) |
| Enova grant | NOK 141 millionR (reported) |
| Hydro primary aluminium today | <4 kg CO2e per kgR (reported) |
| Industry average footprint | 16.7 kg CO2e per kgR (reported) |
R reported by the company
Norsk Hydro
Aluminium, HalZero zero-emission smelting, recycling
Norwegian aluminium producer founded in 1905. Its primary metal already has about a quarter of the industry's average carbon footprint, and it is developing HalZero, a smelting route that emits oxygen instead of CO2.
