Abstract:Aluminum electrolytic waste cell lining contains many valuable resources (carbon and electrolyte, etc). However, due to its complex composition and close symbiosis between useful minerals, the recovery process of valuable components has the problems of unsatisfactory recovery rate, low purity and high disposal cost, which greatly limit the recycling of waste cell lining. XRF, XRD, SEM-EDS and MLA were used to analyze the complete and detailed process mineralogy of an aluminum electrolytic waste cell lining sample. The results show that carbon content in waste cell lining samples was about 67%, it also contains silicon carbide, cryolite, β-alumina, nepheline, sodium fluoride, alkali, resin and a little amorphous substance. The recyclable minerals include carbon, sodium fluoride and cryolite. The carbon contains more impurities and the presence of β-alumina (NaAl7O11) and a large number of fine-grained inclusions, which is the main reason for the difficulty of carbon recovery. The purifying electrolytes process is complicated by the close symbiosis of sodium fluoride and fine calcium fluoride in the form of particles. Cryolite is embedded in carbon in irregular granular form, and a few cryolite closely symbiosis with calcium fluoride or sodium fluoride.