Australian Magnesium to use Alcan Ex2 Technology

Australian Magnesium Corporation will employ Alcan Ex2 cell technology in its Stanwell Magnesium Project. This technology was chosen as it was viewed as the most energy efficient and productive electrolytic cell available.

The Ex2 cells have been operating at Noranda’s Magnola plant in Canada and Sumitomo’s Sitex titanium plant in Japan and offer several advantages over the previous technology, the Alcan MkIII, which were originally planned for in 1997 when the project was first looked at. These advantages include reduced operating costs, less frequent rebuilds, faster ramp ups, capital cost savings, the possibility to be improved as well as utilising the latest technology. Using the Ex2 cells will also mean that only 40 cells will need to be constructed as opposed to 64 MkIII cells to reach a planned output of 90,000tpa of magnesium metal.