Sustainable Mining and Metallurgy

Perfluorocarbons (PFCs) are currently considered to be greenhouse gases with a very strong warming potential. The perfluorocarbons produced during the production of aluminum electrolysis include CF₄ and C₂F₆. China’s electrolytic aluminum production has ranked first in the world for more than ten years. Reducing PFCs emissions during aluminum electrolysis production is one of the ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the aluminum industry. In this paper, the generation mechanism and emission of PFCs in aluminum electrolysis were analyzed. Taking a 300kA series electrolytic cell of an enterprise as an example, the CO₂ equivalent corresponding to PFCs emission was measured and calculated, and compared with the PFCs emission data calculated according to the default value of the guide. The comparison results show that the CO₂ equivalent intensity of PFCs emissions is 0.2523 t CO₂e/t-Al, which is far less than the measured value of 0.8839 t CO₂e/t-Al, which cannot reflect the real PFCs emissions of enterprises. The direct way to reduce PFCs emissions from aluminum electrolysis production is to reduce the number of anode effects and shorten the effect time. Therefore, in order to reduce PFCs emissions, suggestions are made from the aspects of electrolytic cell optimization design, cell control system upgrade, process technology optimization, bulk raw material control, equipment operation and maintenance, etc.