Red Mud from the Aluminium Industry: Production, Characteristics, and Alternative Applications in Construction Materials—A Review

About 120 million tons of red mud is produced worldwide each year. Due to its high basicity and potential leaching, its storage is a critical environmental problem. This material is typically stored in dams, which demands prior care of the disposal area and includes monitoring and maintenance throug...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSustainability Vol. 13; no. 22; p. 12741
Main Authors Silveira, Nathália C. G., Martins, Maysa L. F., Bezerra, Augusto C. S., Araújo, Fernando G. S.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.11.2021
Subjects
Alkalinity
Alumina
Aluminum
Aluminum industry
Basicity
Building materials
Chemical industry
Construction materials
Consumption
Energy efficiency
Leaching
Metal industry
Metallurgical analysis
Metals
Mining
Mud
Red mud
Reviews
Sustainability
Brazil
Australia
United States > US
China
India
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Summary:About 120 million tons of red mud is produced worldwide each year. Due to its high basicity and potential leaching, its storage is a critical environmental problem. This material is typically stored in dams, which demands prior care of the disposal area and includes monitoring and maintenance throughout its useful life. Consequently, it is crucial to figure out an industrial solution able to consumes large volumes of this material. At this moment, there are several studies, the majority in metallurgical procedures, building materials, and in the chemical industry, discussing how to reuse red mud. This paper provides a review of the aluminium process, including metal importance, its global production, and the environmental impact due to its manufacture process. It presents a review of the potential application of red mud showing its overall generation, some relevant characterisation results collected from the literature, and its utilisation in diverse areas of engineering. The study aimed to highlight applications where red mud characteristics may be favourable.
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su132212741