UAE: Arkan testing hazardous waste recycling

Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) and Arkan have agreed a test project which will see hazardous waste material from smelting pots recycled for use as cement kiln fuel. EGA is the largest industrial unit of Mubadala Investment Company, Abu Dhabi’s strategic development conglomerate.

EGA said yesterday that it would provide between 1000-3000t of the spent smelter pot inner-lining (carbon waste usually sent to landfill) to test as both fuel to fire the kiln and as refactory material to be incorporated into the finished cement produced at Arkan’s Al Ain plant.

The aluminium industry worldwide produces about 1Mt of spent inner-lining from aluminium smelting pots annually. Spent pot lining has been listed by the US and other environmental agencies since the 1980s as toxic, containing fluoride and cyanide compounds. As it is costly to dispose of safely, the industry has been searching for ways to recycle the waste product.

In the UAE EGA produces about 37,000t of the waste product annually and has already been testing it as feedstock for other cem­ent plants.