Restart of Shutdown Pots: Troubles, Solutions and Comparison with Normal Pots to Improve Results

Abstract

It is recognized that the premature failure of the pots is a big challenge and worked on the projects to do sidelining and repairing of the shutdown pots to restart. This “Pioneering Work” was carried out at Hindalco Industries Limited, Renukoot, which is recognized as a worldwide leader in this field of Aluminium Production. This paper provides failure analysis of low amperage Hall-Heroult cell and an overview of the sidelined pot. It provides method of sidelining, cathode change, baking, and performance of sideline pots. The paper also makes comparisons for new pots of same life with the sidelined pots, benefits and way forwards. One of the main objectives of this project is the comparison of the sidelined pot with normal pots. The present work is a part of the project “Side-Lining of low amperage Hall-Héroult cell”. The experiments were performed in some selected pots to observe and analyze the parameters like baking conditions, cell noise, cell voltage and cathode lining drop.