Leaching of metals from fresh and sintered red mud

The disposal of red mud, a solid waste generated during the extraction of alumina from bauxite, is one of the major problems faced by the aluminum industry. Proper disposal followed by its utilization, for example as bricks, can provide a satisfactory solution to this problem. Pollution potential of red mud and its finished product, due to metals leaching out from them under certain environmental conditions, need to be studied. Sintering of red mud was performed in a resistance type vertical tube furnace to simulate the brick-making conditions in lab-scale. Leachability of metals in red mud and the sintered product was evaluated by performing sequential extraction experiments on both. The metals studied were the ‘macro metals’ iron and aluminum and the ‘trace metals’ copper and chromium. The total extractabilities of all the metals estimated by the microwave digestion of red mud samples decreased due to sintering. The leachability in sequential extraction of the macro metals iron and aluminum, on the other hand, increased due to sintering in all phases of sequential extraction. However, the effect of sintering on the leachability of the trace metals by sequential extraction was different for copper and chromium in different fractions of sequential extraction.