Progress of Red Mud Utilization: An Overview

Red mud is a solid waste residue of the digestion of bauxite ores with caustic soda for alumina production. Its disposal remains a worldwide issue in terms of environmental concerns. During the past decades, extensive work has been done by a lot of researchers to develop various economic ways for the utilization of red mud. This paper provides a review on the comprehensive utilization of red mud globally. The research progress of safe stockpiling of red mud is summarized. Enormous quantity of red mud is generated worldwide every year posing a very serious and alarming environmental problem. This paper describes the production and characterization of bauxite and red mud in view of World and Indian context. It reviews comprehensively the disposal and neutralization methods of red mud and gives the detailed assessment of the work carried until now for the utilization of red mud in different fields. The chemical and mineralogical characteristics of red mud are summarized with their environmental concerns.