Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

The electrolytic production of aluminum requires continuous consumption of anodes. Due to cell current efficiency and other losses resulting from side reactions, the carbon consumption exceeds the theoretical carbon demand by more than 20% even in the modern smelters. Anode quality is one of the major factors that have a substantial impact on cell performance. High-quality anodes help reduce the carbon loss, energy consumption, environmental emissions, and the cost of production. The overall objective of the project is to improve the anode quality and to ensure the constancy of this quality during anode manufacturing. To achieve this overall objective, the research program has been divided into three parts and the following specific objectives have been defined for each part: in part1, to improve the quality by detecting or reducing the impurities or decreasing their impact on quality and understanding their effects on anode reactivity; part2, to design tools and methods that will help produce better anodes, maintain quality, and detect defective or low quality anodes during the process to eliminate their further processing; and in part 3, to determine conditions for better electrical current distribution within the anode to help predict the anode behavior in the electrolytic cell. The proposed research program involves a combination of fundamental and applied research projects and will contribute to the formation of highly trained personnel. Two post-doctoral fellows, six M.Sc. and five undergraduate students will be trained. Also, two research associates and nearly two technicians will be implicated. The dynamic partnership which has already been established with a previous CRD between two regions that are major players in Canadian aluminum production will continue to develop further. In addition to technical and scientific contributions in this field, the technology transfer will help industry maintain its technological excellence and reduce the cost, energy consumption, and environmental emissions.