Practical Experiment in Confronting / Dealing with a Sick Cell in an Aluminum Production Smelter

This paper describes a useful experience, which was conducted during start-up and potroom operation regarding a sick cell treatment in an aluminum smelter in Iran, which we will call smelter X in this paper. Different parameters in the potroom have influence on cell stability, which need to be considered all together. Metal pad stability is the main concern for a smooth operation in an aluminum smelter to reach a low noise level and a high current efficiency. One of smelter X’s aluminum reduction cells, which was started with good and smooth operating parameters, turned into a sick cell with a very high noise level two months after its start up. A special team started to monitor, test, analyze and try different strategies to bring the cell back to normal condition. This paper is a summary of the aforementioned challenge, team endeavor, possible solutions and final results to overcome this problematic issue.

Keywords:

Cathode Collector Bar , Cathode Current Distribution , Anode Current Distribution , ACD (Anode Cathode Distance) , Finger