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February 3, 2011
Alcoa invests in “green” products
Alcoa invests in “green” products
The growing market for sustainable buildings, driven by the creation of the Leed (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Brazil) seal has stimulated the metals industry to develop metallic structures in order to jump on the business world’s environmental bandwagon.  Such is the case with Alcoa, which is publicly  announcing the development of its “green billet” a sustainable version of the profile used in the structure of houses  and buildings and made from recycled aluminum. “We identified that there was a demand for products made from recyclable  material and decided to adapt our production process to make profiles from 80% recycled aluminum”, says national sales manager, Luiz Nitschke.

This is an initiative also adopted by Arcelor Mittal and Gerdau, who recently obtained the Ecological Seal from the Falcão Bauer Quality Institute for their construction components’ production processes. Just like Alcoa, they are looking closely at the potential of the so-called green building works following creation of Leed by the Brazilian arm of the NGO, Green Building Council, which brings together the world’s main construction companies. According to the Building Technology Center (CTE), there are more than 200 developments currently on-going in Brazil, compared with the 150 in 2010. “At the time of receiving certification from the Green Building Council, the use of recycled material counts in terms of the points awarded”, he observes.

The executive says that Alcoa sold 250 tons of green profiles last year, as part of an experiment. Now it is starting to publicize the product in the  growing market in a more consistent manner, because sales were modest given the production capacity of 800 tons a day at the plants in Santo André (SP) and Itapissuma (PE), a consistent volume when compared with the capacity of 5,200 tons of profiles produced from primary aluminum (the raw metal derived from the beneficiation of bauxite, a mineral mined by Alcoa in Juruti, in Pará).

Self-certification.
 
The difference between the products lies in the control of the production paths. In the case of the green profile, Alcoa needed to develop an internal control system to ensure that the waste resulting from the production of primary aluminum billets will be reused as the raw material for the green billets. "What we did was to separate the processes to guarantee that the product is made with 80% recycled material”, says the coordinator of new construction products, Cíntia Figueiredo. A preoccupation with the origin of the input is at the center of Alcoa’s concerns. This is because its product will not have external certification, like the green steel Of Gerdau and ArcelorMittal, which has been ratified by the Falcão Bauer Institute. According to Luiz Nitschke, to get around the absence of official recognition by an independent agent, Alcoa is going to guarantee to its customers its legal responsibility for its aluminum waste-based transformation process. To do so the American company  is going to monitor the whole of its production process to issue for its customers its own seal of sustainability. “We have adopted a special, tighter control system in order to guarantee internal certification”, he states. Nitschke does not say how much the product costs, but points out that the special production process is likely to add an amount to the price charged for the primary aluminum profile. Nitschke says that the material may exceed the pace of the final cost of green buildings,  whose cost per square meter is, on average, 15 %  higher than for a normal building.
 
“Products with the benefit of sustainability  may have a value up to 50% greater than that of a conventional products”, observes Alcoa’s sales manager .

CONTROLLED PROCESS
The product will only be made to order

Alcoa’s green profile will only be made to measure. Despite the fact that the initial stage for making recycled aluminum ingots is carried out only in Santo André and Itapissuma, the other units of the metal manufacturer will be able to resmelt the extruded products, which will be done according to the dimensions supplied by the customer. Distribution, in turn, will be carried out exclusively by the Alumínio & Cia network, the logistics and operational arm of Alcoa. This exclusivity is in line with the different production process of the material, that is made from aluminum waste coming from the extrusion of profiles in Alcoa’s plants in Santo André (SP) and Itapissuma (PE). The recycled input is reprocessed in a smelting oven, where chemical components are added to form a metal alloy that is the same as  that made from primary aluminum (raw metal made from bauxite). The alloy then undergoes analysis  in a laboratory  to check the composition of the material produced.  If there is any fault the product can be reprocessed. Alcoa needs to attest to the sustainable appeal of the profile on its own in order to consolidate its use in green building works.

The metal company adapted its production line in order to use aluminum waste resulting from the production of billets used in the structures of buildings and houses. The target now is to place the 800 tons daily production capacity of the so-called green profile in the market.