Separation of Petroleum Coke from Anode Stubs Produced During the Aluminum Electrolysis

Petroleum coke contains high amounts of carbon and is used in the manufacturing of anode electrodes for the aluminum extraction. In the process of aluminum production, some particles separate from anodes as waste which contain petroleum coke. Therefore, recycling and processing of these petroleum coke particles is the subject of this study. The ash content reduced to 31% and 13% in the jig and shaking table concentrate, respectively. These two steps were considered as the pre-processing methods and heavy media separation was used to decrease the ash content much more. Finally, flotation was performed in order to purify the particles with the size of less than one millimeter.