The Ministry of Industry and Trade appreciated Rusal's experience in combating emissions

The Scientific and Technical Council of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia was held on the territory of the Irkutsk Aluminum Plant (IrkAZ). The main goal was to study the experience of Rusal metallurgists aimed at reducing the environmental burden. This was reported by the press service of the Ministry.

Vasily Shpak, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, who was present at the council, recalled that IrkAZ had been selected as a facility for the implementation of advanced industrial emissions control solutions. He stressed that the plant is an industry leader due to its unique automated environmental monitoring system.

"The experience of IRKAZ employees is extremely important for the successful launch of predictive analytics hardware, which will become the basis for the further development of environmentally friendly industries in the country," Shpak commented.

IrkAZ has become one of the pilot facilities where the Scientific Research Institute Center for Environmental Industrial Policy conducts development work on the creation of a predictive analysis hardware complex. "Such systems are a promising alternative to traditional instrumental emission control systems," said Dmitry Skobelev, Director of the CEPC Research Institute.

Improving environmental efficiency is one of the key areas of Rusal's investments, the company emphasizes. As part of this work, IrkAZ continues to introduce modern aluminum production technologies and reduce the environmental impact of production.

One of the technologies is "dry" gas purification plants developed by engineers and scientists of the RUSAL Engineering and Technology Center and the SibVAMI Institute. The company has built more than a dozen and a half such gas cleaners, the number of which will reach 40 in the near future.

The installation is included in the Russian directory of the best available technologies designed to reduce the negative impact on the environment, the Ministry's press service noted. The technology is being actively scaled to Rusal's plants, making a significant contribution to achieving the goals of the federal Clean Air project in cities such as Krasnoyarsk and Bratsk.

Andrey Bernyatsky, Director of Rusal's Ecology Department, recalled that IrkAZ was included in the federal Clean Air project. "Rusal pays maximum attention to environmental protection measures and improving the environmental efficiency of our enterprises," he stressed.

As noted in the company, since the mid-noughties, Rusal has implemented several stages of environmental modernization of its enterprises. This actually made it possible to reduce the total emissions of pollutants by 35% and fluorides by 76% by the beginning of the Clean Air project. At the same time, production volumes have increased during this time, and investments in large-scale capacity upgrades have exceeded $885 million.

The company stressed that Rusal relies on the development of its own technological solutions. In particular, the company's scientific and engineering departments have created and patented a number of technologies that have no global analogues, which form a new standard for "clean" aluminum production.

For example, we are talking about environmentally friendly electrolysis technologies with RA-300, RA-400 and RA-550 electrolyzers, which are complemented by digital solutions involving artificial intelligence. The video monitoring system for electrolyzer housings minimizes the human factor and allows you to eliminate deviations from operating parameters as quickly as possible.

In particular, thanks to this, the Novokuznetsk Aluminum Plant was able to achieve the goal of "Clean Air" in advance, reducing pollutant emissions by about a third, Rusal reported. The second example is the Bratsk Aluminum Plant, whose metallurgists have now achieved an 18% reduction in emissions and are expected to reach a level of about 25% by the target year 2026. This progress has been achieved to a large extent based on the experience gained, including at the IrkAZ and Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plants, the company noted.