HPQ Silicon’s Novacium Advances Waste-to-Hydrogen Technology Toward Industrial Pilot Scale
HPQ Silicon Inc. is advancing a technology developed by its French strategic partner Novacium that aims to produce hydrogen while simultaneously converting waste from the aluminum industry into potentially valuable resources.
Research on Novacium’s proprietary HyDRAS™ process has been accepted for presentation at COM 2026, the 65th Annual Conference of Metallurgists organized by the Metallurgy and Materials Society of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum. The research examines a process that combines black dross and bauxite residue, commonly known as red mud, to generate hydrogen.
The HyDRAS™ concept is based on using bauxite residue as an activation agent to enhance hydrogen generation from residual aluminum contained in black dross. Under the test conditions reported in the research, the addition of bauxite residue more than doubled hydrogen yield and significantly increased the hydrogen production flow rate compared with tests conducted without an activation agent.
The approach could create a circular pathway for two major aluminum-industry waste streams. Instead of treating black dross and bauxite residue solely as disposal challenges, the process seeks to extract additional value from both materials while producing hydrogen and potentially recoverable heat.
Bauxite residue is generated in large quantities worldwide, with approximately 175 million tonnes produced annually. Québec alone generates approximately one million tonnes per year, creating a significant incentive to develop additional applications for the material.
“What makes HyDRAS™ particularly interesting is that we are looking at two aluminum industry waste streams not simply as environmental liabilities, but as potential sources of recoverable value,” said Bernard Tourillon, President and CEO of HPQ Silicon. “Combining bauxite residue valorization with hydrogen production is what makes the HyDRAS™ approach particularly interesting from both an environmental and commercial perspective.”
The research was conducted by Novacium in collaboration with Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS, LAGEPP and Casthouse Engineering and Technology AG. The work establishes key process parameters and provides the technical foundation for the next phase of development.
Based on the results, Novacium believes HyDRAS™ is ready to progress toward an industrial pilot-scale demonstration. The next stage is expected to focus on operating the process under industrially relevant conditions and generating technical, operating and economic data needed to assess potential commercial applications.
For HPQ Silicon, the technology also has strategic significance because the company holds exclusive North American licensing rights to Novacium’s hydrogen technologies in Canada, the United States and Mexico.
Successful pilot-scale validation could therefore provide HPQ with an opportunity to evaluate commercial applications for HyDRAS™ across North America, including within Québec’s established aluminum industry.
The technology is also aligned with Québec’s existing efforts to find beneficial uses for bauxite residue. In 2020, the Québec government announced a C$2 million investment in a more than C$9 million circular-economy initiative focused on demonstrating treatment and valorization of bauxite residue at the Vaudreuil site.
HyDRAS™ takes a different but complementary approach by using bauxite residue in the hydrogen-production process while simultaneously targeting the recovery of value from black aluminum dross.
The combination of waste valorization and hydrogen production could give the technology a dual environmental and industrial proposition: reducing the volume of materials requiring disposal while potentially creating a source of hydrogen from materials already generated by aluminum production.
The presentation of the research at COM 2026 marks another step in the development of HyDRAS™, with the technology now moving beyond laboratory research toward the pilot-scale testing required to determine whether the process can be translated into a commercially viable hydrogen-production and aluminum-waste-valorization system.
