September – Virtual Innovation Hub Workshop 2020: Decarbonizing the aluminium value chain

Philippe Marc presented demonstrating use cases of digitalization to reduce smelters carbon footprint after having detailed the importance of sensors development coupled with data transmission resulting in data delivered by the ever-increasing number of sensors. This presents a great asset for improving operations of the cells and at the same time a challenge both from the point of view of data processing and their understanding. To take advantage of these data, Rio Tinto Aluminium is committed in a digital twin development approach involving a better understanding of the various phenomena occurring in the cells through the models we develop and the new accessible data, an always closer connexion between these models, sensors, and process control in order to reach the optimal cell performances from environmental and productivity point of view. A case study was presented on anode effect anticipated detection.