Iron Recovery Technology of Red Mud—A review

Abstract

RM (red mud), which comes from the Bayer process, has a huge annual output and is harmful to the environment. Because of the high iron content in RM, the process of iron recovery from RM can reduce the amount of RM well and create economic benefits, so it is a promising process. The paper focuses on the review on the research of the iron recovery method from RM, which includes the physical recovery method, chemical recovery method and emerging recovery method. By comparing the advantages and disadvantages of these processes, it is concluded that the fluidized bed reduction is a promising process that can be rapidly applied to the industry, but it still needs more investigation to overcome the current technical difficulties in the near future.

Keywords

• red mud
• iron recovery
• pyrometallurgical method
• fluidized bed reduction