The Combined Flame and Aluminum Preheating Method

摘要

A combined Flame-Aluminum-preheating (FAP) method for industrial aluminum electrolysis cells is presented. This preheating process includes two steps. In the first step the aluminum electrolysis cell is preheated to 700-800℃ by the flame from gas burning, and in the second step about 8 tonnes of liquid aluminum are poured into the cell. The cell is then preheated to 950 ℃ by electrical heating. The FAP method has been successfully applied in three 168 kA novel cathode cells at the Tiantai aluminum smelter in China. This shows that the FAP method is simple, safe and reliable, and it gives a short preheating time and low energy consumption of 12400 kW-h and gas consumption of 2500 m~3.