Aluminum Extractor from Clay Concept

This is a machine for processing clay, an abundant feedstock in many parts of the world (already in fine particles) into Aluminum - a high value, industrial metal. Note the energy requirement:

• About 15kW-hours requirement for 1 kg aluminum produced (1.5 kg diesel energy equivalent at 100% conversion). About 1 gallon fuel consumption per kilogram of aluminum produced assuming 30% conversion of diesel to electrolysis current- super energy intensive if done with traditional fuels
• Process design for producing 1 ton of aluminum per day
• Fueled by Solar Concentrator electrical power, and Modern Steam Engine as backup only, for economic sense on a micro-scale
• About 300kW energy requirement for 24 hours per day - huge
  • Practical conversion: 2 acres of biomass fuel required to produce 1 ton of aluminum per year
  • For 15MW-hours of energy per year - solar concentrator requres under 100 square meters of area to fuel this production (assuming 10% solar conversion efficiency). Less than 1/40th of an acre. 100 times as area efficient as biomass.
• About 100 grams of hydroflouric acid are required in a closed loop cycle to carry out the first hydrofluoric acid leaching process phase of aluminosilicate to alumina
• Second phase is standard Hall-Heroult electrolysis.
• Approximately a 6000 square foot facility is required for housing the above process.

Strategically speaking - lunar regolith and Mars settlers are quite interested in this. This process has been developed for extraterrestrial applications initially, where there may be no bauxite.

Subject Matter Experts