Performance study of a new type of collection equipment for unorganized fumes from aluminum electrolysis

To address the deterioration of workshop air quality due to free emission of unorganized fumes from multiple surface sources of residual anode carbon blocks during electrolytic cell opening and anode changing operations, new unorganized fumes collecting equipment based on negative pressure suction was designed. Take a workshop as an example, by the CFD coupled DPM simulation method for unorganized fumes, the influence of the negative pressure P of the fan, and the distance h between the upper surface of the residual carbon block and the exhaust hood on the collection efficiency was investigated. The results showed that the collection efficiency of flue gas and dust increased with the increase in negative pressure and increased at first and then decreased with the rise in the distance between the upper surface of the residual carbon block and the exhaust hood. The collection efficiency of flue gas and dust was the highest when the negative pressure was 5000 Pa, and the distance was 176 mm; at this time the collection efficiency of flue gas was 85.06%, and the dust was 72.58%. Further, validation tests in practical applications were carried out. The experimental results consistently demonstrate that the established CFD coupled DPM simulation method had a good agreement with the experimental results. The error of flue gas collection efficiency was less than 3.1%, and the error of dust collection efficiency was less than 1.2%. The research conducted had critical engineering application values for achieving high cleanliness and low energy consumption operation of unorganized fumes.