In the quest for feed for its burgeoning aluminium industry, China has been exploring the world looking for bauxite and/or alumina supplies, while at the same time growing its domestic bauxite mining industry quite rapidly.

But there’s another source of alumina that often gets overlooked. Fly ash, otherwise known as coal ash, can contain up to 45% alumina. Thanks to China’s enormous steel industry, China has plenty of fly ash available, but the trick has been to develop a technology that would extract the alumina while keeping costs in a reasonable range.

We have reported here previously about developments in Inner Mongolia, especially Datang, who built two refineries devoted to fly ash. Although official information is scarce, the talk has been that those two plants have struggled, and although the finished material has a higher purity than normal, the cost of production is also very high.

But now comes news about the other company that has been exploring the use of fly ash to produce alumina. Mengxi Aluminium, also in Inner Mongolia, has started commercial operations. The plant has a design capacity of 400,000t, but at this stage is still only running phase 1. Phase 2 is expected to enter the market early next year.

The new plant has not had a completely smooth ramp up. They were expected to commence operations almost 12 months ago, but technical problems delayed the start-up. But they are now actively pursuing sales opportunities for their alumina.

One suspects that the key to developing successful technology for fly ash is runtime experience. The more that plants run with the material, and the more players that are prepared to go down the fly ash path, the more chances there are that costs will come down.

Please contact AZ China if you would like more information about the size of the potential or other information about fly ash as a source of alumina.