January 1, 2023 | By Gerald Ondrey
Bauxite residue (red mud) is a byproduct from the smelting of aluminum. Like other waste slags from the metallurgy industry, bauxite residue is traditionally put into hazardous-waste landfills, although it contains a mixture of valuable raw materials in low concentrations. A new process is being developed in a four-year, European project, called HARARE (Hydrogen As the Reducing Agent in the REcovery of metals and minerals from metallurgical waste), which began in June 2021.
Led by Sintef (Trondheim, Norway; www.sintef.no), with nine industry and research partners from four European countries, the four-year HARARE project aims to recover copper and aluminum, as well as iron, cobalt, scandium and other critical metals from copper slag and bauxite residue (diagram), without generating CO2 emissions in doing so.
Conventional…