Measurement and Control of the Calcining Level in Anode Baking Furnaces

Abstract

In the production of prebaked anodes the caicining process takes place in the baking furnace. A commercial baking furnace usually produces from 50,000 to 100,000 mt/year. Regular thermocouples are most commonly used for control of the flue gas temperature. However, the use of thermocouples for calcining level monitoring of individual anodes inside a section is a laborious and costly method. The calcining level of the anodes depends on both temperature and time. We present a monitoring method based on the structural development (LJ with temperature and time of a reference green coke sample. A link is thus established between the total time/temperature history in the various anode positions of a furnace section and the L_c of a reference sample following each anode. Examples of application for baking furnace tuning together with correlations between raw material and baked anode properties are presented.