About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2026 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Thermodynamics for Sustainability: An EPD Symposium in Honor of Kazuki Morita
|
| Presentation Title |
Thermodynamic evaluation and experimental study on valuable metals recovery from red mud |
| Author(s) |
Wenzhou Yu, Jiale Wen, Hao Chen, Tao Xiong |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Wenzhou Yu |
| Abstract Scope |
Red mud is a waste residue discharged during alumina production process, which is rich in valuable elements such as iron and aluminum. This work proposed a new process to recover valuable metals from red mud by combining vacuum reduction, alkali dissolving and magnetic separation. Thermodynamic evaluation and the experimental results show that the iron oxide and silicon dioxide in red mud can be reduced to Fe-Si alloy during vacuum reduction process, while aluminum oxide and calcium oxide can combine to form calcium aluminate. During alkali dissolving process, calcium aluminate decomposes to sodium aluminate solution and calcium carbonate, while Fe-Si alloy is insoluble in alkaline solution. Ultimately, the sodium aluminate can be used to extract alumina, and the calcium carbonate and Fe-Si alloy in slag were separated through magnetic separation. In this process, most of the valuable metals in red mud can be extracted and almost no waste residue was discharged. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Recycling and Secondary Recovery, Extraction and Processing, Sustainability |