Electrodeposition of aluminum from benzene-tetrahydrofuran-Al Cl3-Li Al H4 was studied at room temperature. Galvanostatic electrolysis was used to investigate the effect of various parameters on deposit morphology and crystal size, including current density, temperature, molar ratio of benzene/tetrahydrofuran and stirring speed. The deposit microstructure was adjusted by changing the parameters, and the optimum operating conditions were determined. Dense, bright and adherent aluminum coatings were obtained over a wide range of current densities(10-25 m A/cm2), molar ratio of benzene and tetrahydrofuran(4:1 to 7:8) and stirring speeds(200-500 r/min). Smaller grain sizes and well-adhered deposits were obtained at lower temperatures. Aluminum-magnesium alloys could potentially be used as hydrogen storage materials. A novel method for Al-Mg deposition was proposed by using pure Mg anodes in the organic solvents system benzene-tetrahydrofuran-Al Cl3-Li Al H4. XRD shows that the aluminum-magnesium alloys are mainly Al3Mg2 and Al12Mg17.
Determination of dissolution rate of alumina is one of the classical problems in aluminum electrolysis. A novel method which can measure the dissolution rate of alumina was presented. Effect of factors on dissolution rate of alumina was studied intuitively and roundly using transparent quartz electrobath and image analysis techniques. Images about dissolution process of alumina were taken at an interval of fixed time from transparent quartz electrobath of double rooms. Gabor wavelet transforms were used for extracting and describing the texture features of each image. After subsampling several times, the dissolution rate of alumina was computed using these texture features in local neighborhood of samples. Regression equation of the dissolution rate of alumina was obtained using these dissolution rates. Experiments show that the regression equation of the dissolution rate of alumina is y=-0.000 5x^3＋0.024 0x^2-0.287 3x＋ 1.276 7 for Na3AIF6-AIF3-Al2O3-CaF2-LiF- MgF2 system at 920 ℃.
