OBSERVATION OF ANODIC BUBBLE BEHAVIORS USING LABORATORY SCALE TRANSPARENT ALUMINIUM ELECTROLYSIS CELLS

摘要

Laboratory scale transparent aluminum electrolysis cells wereused to study anodic bubble behavior, including bubble layerthickness, bubble shape and coverage at the anode bottomsurface, and the resultant cell voltage drop in a very similarenvironment to real industrial cells. The observation wasconducted using two transparent cells, one with side-view andthe other with a bottom-view cell design. For theside-observation experiment, the evolution of bubble layerthickness and bubble rising process were studied. In thebottom-observation experiment, bubble behavior wasinvestigated on both unslotted and slotted anodes. Cell voltagewas simultaneously recorded for a quantitative investigation ofits relevance to bubble coverage. It was found that the cellvoltage drop is very consistent with bubble coverage, with ahigh voltage drop corresponding to a high bubble coverage. Thecoverage of anodic gas bubbles decreases with the increase ofcurrent density. These phenomena were observed on unslottedand slotted anodes. The comparison of unslotted anode andslotted anode indicated that the slot significantly reduces the cellvoltage drop, voltage drop fluctuations and bubble coverage.