Constellation, le dépôt institutionnel de l'Université du Québec à Chicoutimi

Résumé

Prebaked anodes are made of dry aggregates (coke, recycled butts and rejected green/baked anodes) and the binder pitch. During the mixing process, the wettability of coke by pitch influences the anode paste behavior. Coke particles (-125 +100 m) were prepared from the same source using two different procedures, and the wettability of cokes by five pitches with different properties was studied using a sessile-drop system at 170ºC. The contact angle results show that the wettability of coke by all pitches follows a similar trend for both cases, but the actual contact angles are different. The cokes and the pitch-coke interfaces were also investigated by the optical and scanning-electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. The image analysis results indicated that the coke particle size distribution depends on the coke preparation, which seems to influence its wettability.