Abstract
Bayer process of alumina production involves generation of considerable mud tonnage (1.5 – 3 t of red mud per 1 ton of alumina) with high content of scandium and rare earth metals up to 120 g/t and 1500 g/t respectively. Scandium is difficult-to-obtain and expensive element (oxide price – 99.9–99.99% is between USD 4 000 – 5000 per kg). The main applications are the high quality alloys, high temperature ceramics, luminescent materials, dielectrics.
In frames of creation of ecologically friendly technology to utilize red mud, RUSAL is developing process of scandium concentrate recovery based on the carbonization leaching of scandium. This process allows improvement of the efficiency of red mud processing by scandium recovery and partial caustic removal with alkali recycling to the process. This technology excludes the acids effluents and can be easily implemented into existing process circuit. This paper presents the results of the laboratory trials of red mud processing with scandium concentrate generation, as well as the data on the pilot unit to produce scandium concentrate at one of the alumina refineries in Russia.
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Petrakova, O.V. et al. (2015). Improved Efficiency of Red Mud Processing through Scandium Oxide Recovery. In: Hyland, M. (eds) Light Metals 2015. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48248-4_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48248-4_17
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