A Study for Recoverability of Iron Resource in Red Mud

The red mud generated from bauxite during the Bayer alumina production process has been regarded as an industrial waste due to the high alkaline property and high content of Na. Despite of its environmental problem, various studies for recovery of the valuable resources from red mud has been also carried out because of high content (25.7 wt.% as Fe2O3 in this study) of iron in red mud. In order to recover the iron resource in the red mud, microwave heating experiments were performed with adding of activated carbon and elemental sulfur to the red mud. Through the microwave heating the powdered red mud mixtures converted to porous and vitrified solid aggregates. The vitrified aggregates produced by microwave heating are composed of goethite, zero valent iron (Fe-0), pyrrhotite and pyrite. And then, the microwave heating samples were dissolved in the aqua regia solution, and Fe precipitates were obtained as a Fe-chlorides by adding of NaCl salt in the aqua regia solution. The Fe recovery rates in the Fe-chloride precipitates showed differences depending on the experimental mixture conditions, and Fe grades of the end products are 49.0 wt.%, 58.0 wt.% and 59.5 wt.% under mixture conditions of red mud, red mud + activated carbon, and red mud + activated carbon + elemental S, respectively. The Fe content of 56.0 wt.% is generally known as the grade value of Fe in a iron ore for iron production, and the Fe grades of microwave heating samples with adding activated carbon and elemental S in this study are higher than the grade value of 56.0 wt.%.