OREANDA-NEWS. UC RUSAL (SEHK: 486; Euronext: RUSAL/RUAL; Moscow Exchange: RUALR/RUALRS), a leading, global aluminium producer, announces that it has deployed a new dry gas scrubbing system at its Novokuznetsk aluminium smelter (NkAZ).

The new gas treatment equipment will ensure that potroom emissions at the site (phase 2) are absorbed. The overall budget for the project was RUB 120 million, of which RUB 11 million was raised in line with Article 6 of the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The funding was secured through reducing perfluorocarbon (PFC) emissions at NkAZ by increasing efficiency and the reduction of the frequency and duration of anode effects.

The new scrubbers ensure 99% off-gas purification efficiency which allows NkAZ to move to nearly zero waste production. Using alumina as an adsorbent for the fluorides in the pot gas effluents instead of the water- and soda-based technologies previously used, will eventually allow for the elimination of disposal areas.

The Kyoto Protocol states that Emission Reduction Units (ERUs) generated at NkAZ could be sold to a third party that also acts in compliance with the Kyoto treaty. The proceeds from such a transaction are then to be used in the upgrade of machinery and equipment that reduce PFC emissions.

The installation of the brand new gas scrubbing system at NkAZ follows on from RUSAL’s launch of a USD 3 mln project aimed at environmental modernization of carbon emitting processes including the production of anode paste (the anode paste plant, APP) at RUSAL’s Krasnoyarsk Aluminium Smelter (KrAZ). RUSAL also plans to invest over USD 6 million in a project to improve the sealing of its pitch storage tanks and furnaces at KrAZ as well as dramatically reducing benzapyrene and tar emissions during the anode paste production process.