Patent 7282133 was granted and assigned to Alcoa on October, 2007 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A method of protecting an inert anode assembly (16) operating in an electrolysis cell (10) for producing metal when an adjacent assembly (16′) is removed exposing remaining assemblies to low ambient temperatures (40) by utilizing heat radiation shields (24) which can circumscribe every inert anode assembly (16), where the shields (24) remain intact and in place in the cell (10) while operating in molten electrolyte (15) at about 850° C.