Coal For The Aluminium Industry?

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31730, 13 July 1968, Page 12

Coal For The Aluminium Industry?

Producing carbon anodes for the electrolytic process of making aluminium will be an important part of the Bluff smelter project Supplies of petroleum coke and pitch will probably be imported for the New Zealand smelter as they are now imported for Comalco’s Tasmanian smelter. Professor A. M. Kennedy, of the chemical engineering department at the University of Canterbury, has drawn attention to laboratory studies in his department on the use of New Zealand coal for making carbon anodes. These studies are still on a modest scale and much more extensive inquiries are needed to demonstrate whether it would be commercially feasible to use coal. The only suitable coal is the opencast Stockton coal, which has unusually low ash properties. To produce carbon anodes for a smelter turning out 100,000 tons of aluminium a year —the output from Bluff may exceed this by 1972—a similar tonnage of coal would be needed. Large-scale mining is to be established in the Buller region to produce about a million tons of coal a year for the New Plymouth power station after 1973. “Hie scheme includes aerial ropeways to carry coal from Stockton to Westport for shipping. The possibility of using coal to make carbon anodes has already been noticed by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The feasibility of the idea, the extent of suitable coal resources, and the economics of transport should be explored as soon as possible. The gas and oil industries may be able to combine to supply pitch for making anodes. It is in such ancilliary industries that the greatest benefits of the aluminium industry are likely to accrue to New Zealand.