Moller direct pot feeding system for greenfield and brownfield smelters

摘要

FLSmidth is a market-leading supplier of equipment and services to the global minerals and cement industries. With more than 15,000 employees, FLSmidth is a global company with headquarters in Denmark and local presence in more than 50 countries including project and technology centres in Denmark, India, USA and Germany. Over the past 130 years FLSmidth has developed a business culture based on three fundamental values: competence, responsibility and cooperation. For the alumina and bauxite industries the company offers complete bauxite handling, storage, crushing, grinding and settling on the red mud side, as well as conveying and storage systems on the white side. Today's aluminium smelter industry requires the most economical, reliable and environmentally friendly systems in each part of the smelter. The electrolysis cells (pots) in all modern greenfield smelters are already or will be equipped with closed pot feeding systems. Brownfield smelters, which still mainly use the open type crane feeding technology, seem more in need of changes to the closed pot feeding system after examining modernisation projects. The Moller direct pot feeding system is an innovative system that ensures constant and reliable feeding of secondary (fluori-nated) alumina to each ore bunker of the electrolysis cell. Since the first installations at Vereinigte Aluminium Werke (VAW) in Hamburg, Germany, and at Aluminij Mos-tar in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the design has continuously been improved in order to fulfill a wide range of requirements. These improvements include a flexibility for use in both greenfield and brownfield smelters. This paper presents the general design and latest improvements of the Moller direct pot feeding. This system will be installed in the Emirates Aluminium (Emal) Phase 2 greenfield project in Taweelah, Abu Dhabi, and in a brownfield project at Alcasa in Venezuela.