Recovering Critical Materials from Red Mud

Recovering Critical Materials from Red Mud

By September 27, 2016

epa02373876 (FILE) An aerial photo taken on 24 August 2006 on a reservoir containing red mud of an alumina factory near Ajka, 156 kms southwest of Budapest, Hungary. A wall of the reservoir broke on 04 October 2010 and the poisonous chemical sludge inundated some 400 family houses in Devecser, killing one person and injuring some sixty. Three people are unaccounted for. E EPA/SANDOR H. SZABO HUNGARY OUT

KU Leuven recently published a landmark review paper on red mud valorisation in the Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy. It offers solutions to the long-term storage of bauxite residue (red mud) which is so harmful to our global environment.  Although there is no immediate large scale utilization of bauxite residue, some bauxite residues contain considerable concentrations of rare-earth elements (REEs) and the recovery of these REEs together with or without other metals and utilization of the generated residue in other applications (e.g., building materials) can solve the storage problem of bauxite residue. This paper reviews the recovery of REEs, possibly alongside other valuable metals, from bauxite residue. Read more about the great work being done at KU Leuven.



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