Effects of operational and structural parameters on cell voltage of industrial magnesium electrolysis cells

摘要

Electric field is the energy foundation of the electrolysis process and the source of the multiphysical fields in a magnesium electrolysis cell. In this study, a three-dimensional numerical model was developed and used to calculate electric field at the steady state through the finite element analysis. Based on the simulation of the electric field, the operational and structural parameters, such as the current intensity, anode thickness, cathode thickness, and anode-cathode distance (ACD), were investigated to obtain the minimum cell voltage. The optimization is to obtain the minimum resistance voltage which has a significant effect on the energy consumption in the magnesium electrolysis process. The results indicate that the effect of the current intensity on the voltage could be ignored and the effect of the ACD is obvious. Moreover, there is a linear decrease between the voltage and the thicknesses of the anode and cathode; and the anode-cathode working height also has a significant effect on the voltage.