MODELING THE MASS AND ENERGY BALANCE OF DIFFERENT ALUMINIUM SMELTING CELL TECHNOLOGIES

The modern primary aluminium industry is continuously aiming to reduce the cell energy consumption and the harmful cell emission rates. In order to optimize both aspects, a comprehensive understanding and prediction of the electrolysis cell mass and energy balance must be obtained. Traditionally, many cell heat balance models have presented limited considerations on the mass balance, reactions above the cavity crust and cell duct flow. The thermal balance model presented in this paper is entirely based on the first law of thermodynamics. The extended cell control volume that includes the hooded cell space is adopted. This new approach allows automatic accounting for important exothermic reactions and the study of the impact of duct gas flow rate on the energy balance. A user-friendly software tool for studying the cell energy balance was developed. The new modeling tool is applied to assess the mass and energy consumption rates of different cell technologies.