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aluminum smelting
May 24, 2007 by jeff w, 2 years 26 weeks ago
Comment id: 23761
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Today's aluminum smelting operations works by electrolysis. Refrigerator-sized carbon anodes are submerged in a bath of very hot fused fluoride salt solution containing refined aluminum oxide. The 1,000 °C-bath dissolves the alumina, and the anodes' strong electric current plates out pure metallic aluminum.
Today's carbon anodes react with oxygen to release the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and fluorocarbons into the atmosphere. For each pound of aluminum, the process produces almost 1.5 pounds of carbon dioxide.