Emirates Global Aluminium PJSC (EGA) began a new phase in its ongoing research partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) last week.

The partnership, which began five years ago, features an eight-week visit by MIT Master’s and Ph.D. students from the David H. Koch School of Chemical Engineering Practice to EGA’s plants at Jebel Ali and Al Taweelah. The program is intended to connect the latest academic developments with the substantial industrial experience accumulated by EGA.

The nine post-grad students will tackle several problems encountered by the smelter, including reducing energy usage by the smelter to finding new and beneficial uses for magnetic fields generated by the production of aluminium.

Abdalla Al Zarooni, Vice President of Technology Development and Transfer at EGA, noted the mutual benefits the program has yielded for both parties.

“This is our fifth series of projects with MIT, and we are pleased to continue this innovative programme in the Middle East. Since 2015 this program has brought many benefits to both parties, helping to expose EGA engineers to the latest academic thinking and turning academic innovations into industrial reality. Previous projects with MIT have already delivered more than a million dollars a year in cost savings as well as environmental performance improvements.”

Upon completion of the current program, EGA and MIT will have collaborated to complete a total of 30 individual research projects.

Based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Emirates Global Aluminium is an aluminium conglomerate created by the merger between Dubai Aluminium (DUBAL) and Emirates Aluminium (EMAL) in 2013. EGA had an estimated enterprise value of US$15 billion at the time the merger took place. The firm is owned equally by Mubadala Development Company of Abu Dhabi and Investment Corporation of Dubai. Emirates Global Aluminium holds interests in bauxite/alumina and primary aluminium smelting. （From Aluminum Insider)