Filtration Refining of Primary Aluminum from Impurities of Vanadium Intermetallides

In the last decade, there has been a tendency to use lower-quality raw materials for the production of anodes in the electrolytic production of aluminum. This is mainly due to the extraction of heavy oil (which includes asphaltene compounds). Asphaltenes concentrate metal impurities (Fe, Si, Ti, V, etc.), which during coking are converted into coke, and then into aluminum. One of the impurities in primary aluminum, which reduces the electrical conductivity of the metal at a concentration of about 2 ppm, is vanadium. This work has studied the process of filtration refining of aluminum melt, after flux treatment of the melt in a casting ladle with boric acid (H3BO3), in order to clean it from vanadium diboride VB2 formed during flux refining. Thermodynamic and experimental studies of the process of filtration refining of liquid raw aluminum after flux treatment with boric acid (H3BO3) from intermetallic compounds VB2 formed during refining in a bulk volume filter made of Ekibastuz coal ash with a binder in the form of lignosulfonate have showed the possibility of reducing the vanadium content in aluminum melt.