Linde Awarded Contract to Supply Low-Temperature Oxyfuel System to Stena Aluminium

Linde Gases, a division of The Linde Group (Munich), announced its agreement with Stena Aluminium in Sweden for installation of its low-temperature oxyfuel technology. Stena Aluminium is a leading producer of recycled aluminium and the installation, scheduled for end of February this year, will be for improvements to one of the company?s alloying and casting furnaces at their Älmhult plant.

Benefits to Stena of the Linde-proprietary Low-temperature Oxyfuel solution include increased productivity as the technology will more efficiently supply the energy needed for dissolution of added alloys and superheat the melt. Additionally, emissions of greenhouse gases, CO2 and NOX, will be reduced.

"Linde?s Low-temperature Oxyfuel technology continues to experience enthusiastic uptake within the aluminium industry,? said Dr Joachim von Schéele, Marketing Manager, Metals and Glass, Linde. ?It allows the capability to deliver real production capacity increases while mitigating the risk of overheating the aluminium surface?.

Over the past two decades, Linde has pioneered the use of oxyfuel technology in the aluminium industry and has undertaken hundreds of successful installations. ?This latest implementation demonstrates our customers? continued confidence in our technology to make them more competitive?, Joachim von Schéele added.

"Stena aims to use as few resources and have as little environmental impact as possible during the manufacturing process, so we are committed to implementing technologies that decrease fuel consumption and CO2 and NOX emissions. Linde?s Low-temperature Oxyfuel solution is a compelling technology that will help us to meet this goal?, said Ronny Olausson, Plant Manager at Stena Aluminium.

Increasing throughput of existing furnaces represents a challenge for the aluminium industry. Producers need to constantly improve process yields, cut fuel consumptions and reduce emissions of gases, such as CO2 and NOX. Low-temperature Oxyfuel combustion technology is uniquely designed to meet these challenges. It typically boosts capacity by up to 30-50 percent, delivers uniform furnace temperatures to avoid hot spots, and reduces fuel consumption and emissions by up to 50 percent. The technology is currently successfully employed at four plants, including Hydro in Norway and SAPA in Sweden, where it has boosted production capacities by up to 60 percent.

www.linde.com

www.stenaaluminum.com