Innovation

Did you know that millions of tons of aluminum waste, called dross and salt cake, go into landfill every year? Reifschneider and Davis, graduates from MIT and Georgetown, respectively, stumbled upon this problem in their studies and have developed a unique technology to fix it. Their aluminum waste diversion technology allows them to recover residual aluminum and other valuable commodities from aluminum waste instead of sending it to landfill.

“Imagine a big vat of molten metal,” Reifschneider explains about the aluminum production process. “At the top layer where the metal is exposed to air, a hard layer forms and gets scraped off — this is called dross. Dross has a little aluminum stuck to it and a mix of salt and aluminum oxide. Eighty-five percent of that mixture gets thrown into waste.”

Reifschneider and Davis’ technology repurposes this dross by separating it into aluminum, salt, and oxide, which are all valuable inputs for aluminum and cement producers. They sell these products back to producers, closing the loop in an otherwise wasteful process. At the same time, the company uses unrecyclable aluminum from the waste to produce green hydrogen.

Inspiration

The business venture began over the COVID-19 pandemic, when Reifschneider and Davis were sent home from college to San Diego. Reifschneider, studying Mechanical Engineering, and Davis, studying Management and Physics, decided to put their heads together to fight the climate crisis.

“We’ve always had a deep motivation to use our STEM backgrounds to work on something climate-related,” Reifschneider said. “When Covid hit, we were sent home from college on the East Coast and decided to use that otherwise lost time to start coming up with ideas and do something about the climate problem.”

The pair began exploring the reaction of aluminum and water to produce clean hydrogen — a notoriously dirty or expensive element to produce. Coining their business venture “Hydrova,” they planned to commercialize their technology to produce hydrogen using aluminum and water. While working on that technology, they dove deep into the aluminum industry and discovered the massive waste challenge in aluminum recycling and production processes.

“A lot of people throw their aluminum cans into the recycling bin and don’t really know what happens afterwards,” Davis said. “Recycling aluminum is so critical and helps us save around 95% of emissions in comparison to smelting new aluminum. However, by recycling aluminum, we inevitably produce dross and that’s a massive waste challenge that hasn’t been effectively dealt with yet. At Hydrova, we’re helping make sure that the aluminum recycling process is actually a fully closed loop.”

After receiving a grant from MIT as well as funding from angel investors and venture capitalists, the pair has set its focus on developing its aluminum recycling process utilizing its green hydrogen technology.

“We both grew up in California, witnessing the effects of climate change — the never-ending drought that we are in and the wildfires that seem to get worse and worse,” Davis said. “We feel that the work we’re doing right now is one small but important part of that greater mission to fight climate change.”

Overall impact

Hydrova has already begun making a positive impact on a small scale and is on the path to create a huge impact for businesses, the environment, and society. The team is currently about halfway through a pilot project for TST, the largest aluminum manufacturer in California. After proving their process in the lab over the last two years, they plan to transition to their first full-scale commercial facilities once the pilot is complete.

The goal of the pilot is to turn about 5,000 pounds of aluminum waste from TST into Hydrova’s three end products and send them back to its pilot partners. The team has already proven its process on the lab-scale, passing industry specifications with flying colors, and is now scaling up to the pilot scale. They have already recovered the aluminum and are in the process of building out the equipment to recover the other products.

“We’re fairly confident this process works and are basically doing a lot of engineering work to scale it up and build larger versions of this equipment,” Reifschneider said.

Once scaled up, their aluminum recycling process has the potential to divert millions of tons of waste, according to Reifschneider. The environmental impact of this recycling will be huge.

“Repurposing these materials that otherwise go into landfill is helping preserve resources like salt, aluminum, and aluminum oxide — all things we have to dig out of the ground or refine,” Davis said. “If you look at the sustainability and emissions impact, there’s a lot that goes on that we can help reduce. The more materials we can recycle, the less we have to pull out of Mother Earth.”

Business benefit

The environmental benefits coincide with the business benefits as well. The disposal of dross is a massive headache for aluminum manufacturers, according to Reifschneider. The waste is hazardous, so only certain landfills will accept it, and businesses want to find the cheapest way to dispose of it. By being an on-site recycling solution, Hydrova saves businesses the freight cost of transporting this waste as well as the emissions impact of trucking it. On top of that, Hydrova also helps companies meet their sustainability goals. Several companies have set ambitious goals that need innovative companies like Hydrova to be met.

Long term, Hydrova will play a role in the transition away from plastics to more sustainable materials like aluminum.

“Aluminum is awesome because you can turn an aluminum can into basically another aluminum can — and we’re trying to make it so you can really do that one-for-one,” Reifschneider said. “Plastic is typically not one-for-one but instead usually down cycled. Aluminum is a very important alternative to plastic for the future. The more things we can elect to be made out of aluminum instead of plastic the better.”

Social and environmental benefit

Hydrova works toward several Sustainable Development Goals. Most notably, the company supports Goal 9: Industry, innovation & infrastructure through its recycling innovation to create a closed loop in the aluminum industry. Along with that, the company also works towards Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities. Finally, at the heart of the company is Goal 13: Climate action as recycling and producing green hydrogen help reduce emissions and fight climate change. The innovative technology to produce green hydrogen also supports Goal 7: Clean energy.

Interviews

Julian Davis, CEO

Rostam Reifschnneider, CTO