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Gas Anodes Made of Porous Graphite for Aluminium Electrowinning

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Light Metals 2017

Part of the book series: The Minerals, Metals & Materials Series ((MMMS))

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Abstract

One of the major downsides of the current aluminium production process is the high CO2 emission. One alternative is to replace the consumable carbon anodes with inert anodes so that oxygen evolves instead of CO2. Also PFC emissions will be eliminated by using inert anodes. However, so far a sufficiently inert anode has not been found. Another option is to utilize natural gas through porous anodes in order to change the anode process. This will decrease CO2 emission remarkably and also eliminate PFC emissions and anode effect. The porous anode could be made of carbon or it can be inert. However, the as-mentioned problem still exists regarding porous inert anodes. Therefore, at the moment porous carbon anodes seem to be the best practical option. In this study, porous anodes made of different grades of graphite were used for electrolysis experiments in a laboratory cell. Also, off-gas analysis was performed to get an insight of the ongoing reactions. Our results show that for some types of graphite anodes, methane participates effectively in the anodic reaction.

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Acknowledgements

Financial support is gratefully acknowledged from the Research Council of Norway, GASSMAKS program, and grant number 224985.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), 7491, Trondheim, Norway

    Babak Khalaghi & Geir Martin Haarberg

  2. SINTEF Materials and Chemistry, 7465, Trondheim, Norway

    Henrik Gudbrandsen, Ole Sigmund Kjos, Karen Sende Osen, Ove Bjørn Paulsen & Tommy Mokkelbost

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  1. Babak Khalaghi
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  2. Henrik Gudbrandsen
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  3. Ole Sigmund Kjos
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  4. Karen Sende Osen
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  5. Ove Bjørn Paulsen
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  6. Tommy Mokkelbost
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  7. Geir Martin Haarberg
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Correspondence to Babak Khalaghi .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. SINTEF , Trondheim, Norway

    Arne P. Ratvik

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© 2017 The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society

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Khalaghi, B. et al. (2017). Gas Anodes Made of Porous Graphite for Aluminium Electrowinning. In: Ratvik, A. (eds) Light Metals 2017. The Minerals, Metals & Materials Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51541-0_159

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