
179Electric Furnace Melting
6000 kg of molten metal, although they are usually much smaller. The high reectivity
of molten aluminum means that a large bath surface is required for effective heating,
and this in turn increases the potential for dross formation and hydrogen pickup during
holding. As a result, use of these furnaces is limited.
Attempts have been made to overcome the disadvantages of resistance-heated
furnaces. One of the more promising is a hybrid furnace that uses fossil-fuel heating
for charge heating and melting and resistance heating for heating and holding the
molten metal (Kanthal, 2009). This improves melting capacity, w ...