Anodic Bubble Behavior and Voltage Drop in a Laboratory Transparent Aluminum Electrolytic Cell

Abstract

The anodic bubbles generated in aluminum electrolytic cells play a complex role to bath flow, alumina mixing, cell voltage, heat transfer, etc., and eventually affect cell performance. In this paper, the bubble dynamics beneath the anode were observed for the first time from bottom view directly in a similar industrial electrolytic environment, using a laboratory-scale transparent aluminum electrolytic cell. The corresponding cell voltage was measured simultaneously for quantitatively investigating its relevance to bubble dynamics. It was found that the bubbles generated in many spots that increased in number with the increase of current density; the bubbles grew through gas diffusion and various types of coalescences; when bubbles grew to a certain size with their surface reaching to the anode edge, they escaped from the anode bottom suddenly; with the increase of current density, the release frequency increases, and the size of these bubbles decreases. The cell voltage was very consistent with bubble coverage, with a high bubble coverage corresponding to a higher cell voltage. At low current density, the curves of voltage and coverage fluctuated in a regularly periodical pattern, while the curves became more irregular at high current density. The magnitude of voltage fluctuation increased with current density first and reached a maximum value at current density of 0.9 A/cm2, and decreased when the current density was further increased. The extra resistance induced by bubbles was found to increase with the bubble coverage, showing a similar trend with published equations.