Mechanical and electrochemical properties of Al alloys can be improved by adding a small amount of rare-earth such as yttrium. Here we demonstrate that adding yttrium also helps suppress the porosity in cast Al alloys, thus minimizing its detrimental effect on mechanical properties of the alloys. The mechanism behind is elucidated based on the hydrogen binding energies and the diffusion activation energies of hydrogen atoms in Al and Al-Y phases, calculated using the first-principle method. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.