Main Categories of Red Mud and Its Environmental Impacts

Red mud or bauxite residue is a waste or by-product produced from the alumina industry. Due to many kinds of alumina production methods, such as Bayer, combination and sintering process, it correspondently causes various types of red mud and their distinct characteristics, thus, the comprehensive unitization of red mud becomes much more difficult. At present, most of the red mud is dumped directly in the disposal field by wet disposal or dried treatment, it leads not only to farmland occupation, environmental pollution and potential dam body collapse, but also causes resource waste because some useful components in red mud are not properly reused. Therefore, it is necessary to systemically analyze the categories and properties of red mud and evaluate its impacts on environment and human being to make the criterion of red mud discharge and its application.