The annual RUSAL Laboratory Research Papers competition was held in 5 technological spheres. Rustem Sadykov and Alexey Shestakov, postgraduate students of St. Petersburg Mining University, won the best project in the nomination “Electrolysis Production” with the project entitled “Multifunctional Breakthrough Device and Local Anode Effect Elimination System for Aluminum Electrolyzer”.
The competition consisted of a qualifying stage, the revision of the projects together with RUSAL experts, and a final defence in front of a jury of experts. From 59 registered applications, 21 teams from 15 Russian cities made it to the final.
Rustem Sadykov and Aleksey Shestakov’s research was conducted at the education and research centre for digital technologies of Mining University. The research is dedicated to the solution of a problem, actual for the field-specific industries: increase of the lifetime of the alumina feeding systems of aluminium electrolyzers, and reduction of emissions into the atmosphere due to reduction of anode effects and some other factors.
“For several months we actively worked with RUSAL’s experts, who were our mentors throughout the competition. This allowed us to assess our weaknesses and improve the quality of our surveys. Our supervisor, Pavel Petrov, Dean of the Faculty of Minerals Processing, also made a huge contribution to our victory,” said Rustem Sadykov.
His colleague Alexei Shestakov noted that work on the project allowed them to better understand “features of modern aluminium production that have not yet been written about in textbooks.”
“For example, we were taught about the current problem of the breakthrough of the punch tip of the automatic alumina feeding system. This occurs not only because of crust breakthrough but also because the tip is lowered into a chemically active melt with a temperature of about 960°C. We did additional research and presented a new, improved mode of operation of the device already taking into account the existing problems in production. The solution we proposed was called extremely promising. Now we are planning to get a patent for the developed method and apply it in practice,” said Alexei Shestakov.
Let us remind that this year, in connection with the sanitary-epidemiological situation, the contest was held remotely. It is organized by the Youth Platform of Professional Metallurgists Association. United Company RUSAL acts as a general partner.