Sustainable Mining and Metallurgy

Due to the unreasonable design of electromagnetic field and heat balance, the mismatch of process operation parameters, the 500kA aluminum electrolytic cell in an electrolytic aluminum plant has serious early damage problem, it brings great risk to the long life and high efficiency operation of electrolytic cell. In this paper, through the anatomy of the electrolytic cell, the damage mechanism of the cathode carbon block of the electrolytic cell was deeply analyzed. It can be seen that the early damage of the electrolytic cell is mainly divided into several categories, such as the deformation of the tank shell, the damage of the cathode carbon block, and the damage of the side. In order to solve the problem of cathode damage, the lining and process technical parameters of the electrolytic cell were optimized in depth without changing the structure of the cathode busbar. Finally, the risk of early damage of the electrolytic cell was effectively solved, and the purpose of prolonging the service life of the electrolytic cell was realized.