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Waste Treatment by Waste: Study on Iron Recovery from High-Iron Red Mud by Spent Cathode Carbon Block as Reductant and the Behavior of Na/F

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Abstract

Red mud and spent cathode carbon block (SCCB) are environmentally hazardous industrial wastes generated by the alumina and aluminum electrolysis industries, respectively. In this paper, SCCB was applied to iron recovery from high-iron red mud by vortex smelting reduction with the concept of ‘waste treatment by waste.’ The experimental results showed that the SCCB can effectively replace the reducing agent such as coking coal to realize the recovery of iron from high-iron red mud. Pig iron was obtained under the optimal reduction conditions of an experimental temperature of 1350 °C, alkalinity of 1.0, carbon ratio of 1.0, and time of 20 min. More than 91% of the iron was recovered. In addition, during the reduction process, prolonging the holding time, increasing the temperature, and increasing the alkalinity were favorable to removing Na. The Na in the reduced slag was mainly in the form of NaAlSiO4. The increase in holding time favored the generation of the NaAlSiO4 phase, while the increase in alkalinity had the opposite effect, and changes in temperature and carbon ratio had little effect on the Na-containing phase. Finally, the fluoride ion concentration in the leach solution of reduction slag was 24.7 mg/L (lower than 100 mg/L), which proved that the reduction tailings could effectively realize fluoride fixation.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52204419), the National Natural Science Foundation of Liaoning (2022-BS-076), and the Science and Technology Major Project of Guangxi (2021AA12013). Jiangxi Province ‘Double Thousand Plan’ Innovation Leaders Short-term Project-Natural Science Category (S2021DQKJ2198).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Ecological Metallurgy of Multi-Metal Intergrown Ores of Ministry of Education, Northeastern University, 3-11 Wenhua Road, Shenyang, 110819, China

    Xiaofei Li, Ting-an Zhang, Guozhi Lv, Ku Wang & Song Wang

  2. School of Metallurgy, Northeastern University, 3-11 Wenhua Road, Shenyang, 110819, China

    Xiaofei Li, Ting-an Zhang, Guozhi Lv, Ku Wang & Song Wang

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  1. Xiaofei Li
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  2. Ting-an Zhang
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  4. Ku Wang
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Correspondence to Ting-an Zhang.

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The contributing editor for this article was M. Akbar Rhamdhani.

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Li, X., Zhang, Ta., Lv, G. et al. Waste Treatment by Waste: Study on Iron Recovery from High-Iron Red Mud by Spent Cathode Carbon Block as Reductant and the Behavior of Na/F. J. Sustain. Metall. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40831-024-00823-4

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