Australian Bauxite Limited (ABx) said this week that its subsidiary ALCORE Limited had received a 7.5 million Australian dollar grant from the Australian Government’s Modern Manufacturing Initiative for its 16,000 m² aluminum bath recycling plant. 4 million Australian dollars in Bell Bay, Tasmania.

ABx says the proposed plant will be the first site in the world to recycle aluminum smelter bath into a usable and commercially viable product. The plant is expected to have the capacity to convert 1,600 metric tons of aluminum smelter bath per year into hydrogen fluoride and other useful chemicals.

Some of the hydrogen fluoride will be converted to aluminum fluoride, providing Australia with its first domestic source of critical aluminum smelting chemicals and helping to insulate the country’s aluminum production sector from supply chain disruptions.

Alcore CEO Mark Cooksey said in a press release that the project would be a boon for several players in the Australian economy.

“We look forward to delivering our project in Tasmania as soon as possible, to increase security of supply for Australian aluminum smelters and create highly skilled manufacturing jobs. The production of aluminum fluoride from an aluminum foundry bath is an exemplary illustration of the circular economy.

Alcore eventually plans to expand the plant to 15 times its original design capacity, allowing the site to process the country’s entire aluminum smelter bath and supply over 80% of Australia’s aluminum fluoride needs.

Based in Sydney, ABx operates in Tasmania, Queensland and New South Wales. The company has a combined JORC resource of 124 million metric tonnes in twenty-two properties covering almost two thousand square kilometers in eastern Australia. Its Binjour building in Queensland is considered by the company to be its flagship project.