Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ALSiment (Transforming the hazardous waste of the metallurgical industry into a valuable raw material)
Reporting period: 2017-05-01 to 2017-08-31
Metallurgy is one of the biggest producers of solid wastes: Last year, aluminium smelters produced globally <1.5 Mt of spent pot lining (SPL), a hazardous material. Al industry pays €520-1.560 million annually for managing this waste with processes with no added-value. Ferroalloys production generates wastes mainly in the form of slag, whose further treatment is both not optimized and expensive. Fe-Si slags are commonly applied in the production of cementitious materials, but cement as binding material has severe environmental disadvantages: each ton of produced cement releases approx. 1 ton of CO2, making the cement industry responsible for 8% of the global CO2 emissions. Consequently, there is an urgent need to minimize the usage of cement. AlSiment aims to to recycle 100% of metallurgy wastes into a new raw material valuable for industrial applications, and achieve agreements with metallurgical industries interested in adopting our technology. AlSiment aims to close the Al- and Fe-Si cycles with process where no waste is generated, eliminating their hazardous nature, facilitating their transportation and providing a cheap, environmentally-friendly raw material to the energy intensive industry and insulating industry
Identified the raw materials to produce Alsiment binder and waste material to bind. Set the directions to achieve the final AlSiment recipe. Planned the on-field pilot tests in our stakeholders’ plant. Established the timing, effort and specific activities for the technical optimization and to scale up and industrialize our solution. Deep market study to set the business margins, competitors and market strategy in Europe and evaluated risks. Identified locations for AlSiment facilities out of Iceland. Defined our commercial and exploitation strategy to set successful agreements with early adopters and clients. FTO analysis and patent strategy. Growth forecast including the cost analysis of AlSiment solution. Total investment requirements to bring the solution to the market and reviewed the global business plan.
AlSiment is able to recycle 100% of metallurgical wastes, including hazardous, preventing them from being landfilled or subjected to expensive processes to make them inert before disposal. The solution is performed at low temperature, with a lower cost compared with competitors, and no residues are produced, but a new raw material will be produced, decreasing the environmental impact, people’s health and impact of producer industry.