Research summary
Extracted from a mineral called bauxite, aluminum goes through a resource-intensive process to be transformed into a form we can use. It takes approximately 20 tons of bauxite to make one ton of aluminum. As Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Carbon Sources for Extractive Metallurgy, Dr. Houshang Alamdari is searching for ways to address the environmental issues that go along with extracting and refining metals like aluminum.
The aluminum production process consumes a considerable amount of petroleum coke and coal-tar pitch, which are the industry’s principal sources of CO2 and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon emissions. Alamdari and his research team are developing techniques that could enable petroleum coke to be replaced with biomass-based carbon in aluminum production. Ultimately, this would go a long way in helping the Canadian aluminum industry achieve a zero carbon footprint.