Abstract
In this work, a collaborative strategy for the aluminum and iron industry based on red mud recycling through the hydrometallurgy method was proposed. In this method, Fe3+ and Al3+ were firstly separated from the red mud by using H2SO4 as a leaching agent, which was by-produced from the sintering process of an iron and steel industry. Multiple influence factors on the leaching process were investigated, with the H2SO4 addition amount showing the strongest influence on the leaching rates of Al and Fe. The main components of the filter residue were CaSO4, TiO2, and SiO2, which could be reused as additives in the building materials. Subsequently, the final Fe recovery product was obtained through the co-precipitation, Fe/Al separation, and Fe(OH)3 calcination. In the final product, the content of Fe2O3 reached 82.87%, and the iron grade was 58.01%, meeting the requirement being raw materials for sinter production.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Mr. Tang for his valuable suggestions.
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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51978644) and Innovative and Enterprising Team “Linghang Project” of Zhanjiang (2020LHJH004).
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Xiaolong Liu: investigation and original draft writing; Yang Zou: investigation and original draft writing; Ran Geng: investigation; Bin Li: review and editing; Tingyu Zhu: supervision.
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Liu, X., Zou, Y., Geng, R. et al. Red mud recycling by Fe and Al recovery through the hydrometallurgy method: a collaborative strategy for aluminum and iron industry. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 43377–43386 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-25389-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-25389-8