Red mud storage has become a big headache amid rapidly expanding alumina capacity in China, the world’s top alumina producer

China is the world's largest producer of alumina, but the issue of red mud (also known as bauxite tailings) disposal has always been a major concern. Red mud is an industrial solid waste discharged during the extraction of alumina in the aluminum industry. Due to its high iron oxide content, it resembles red soil in appearance, hence the name red mud. Due to differences in ore grade, production methods, and technological levels, approximately 1.0 to 1.8 mt of red mud is discharged for every 1 mt of alumina produced.

As a major producer of alumina, China faces increasing red mud accumulation and severe environmental pollution. Maximizing the recycling of red mud has become an urgent necessity. Recently, the Shanxi Provincial Government announced that a special action meeting on the safety hazards and ecological environment risks of tailings ponds in Shanxi was held in Xinzhou. SMM conducted a brief survey on the recent red mud pond inspections in Shanxi and the current capacity status of red mud ponds at alumina refineries in Lvliang. The specific details are as follows.

Table 1: Summary of Special Action for Investigating Safety Hazards and Ecological Environment Risks of Red Mud Ponds in Shanxi

According to the SMM survey, alumina refineries in Shanxi generally face the problem of insufficient capacity in red mud ponds. Together with the fact that the approval process for new red mud ponds has not been smooth in recent years, the capacity of red mud ponds in some alumina refineries in Shanxi can only meet the red mud storage needs for the next one to two years, while the capacity of red mud ponds in a few producers can only meet the storage needs for about half a year. The table below shows the list of local red mud ponds and their respective capacities published by the Lvliang government in 2023.

Table 2: List of Tailings Ponds in Lvliang City Announced by the Lvliang Government in October 2023

Red mud is a large amount of solid waste generated during the production of alumina, and its treatment and storage have always been a challenge in the industry. The problem of insufficient capacity of red mud ponds is gradually emerging, mainly due to the following reasons:

Rapidly growing alumina production

With the rapid development of China's aluminum industry, the annual output of alumina continues to rise, leading to an increase in the production of red mud. This is especially true in established alumina production areas such as Shanxi and Henan, where the capacity of existing red mud storage facilities is insufficient to meet the growing storage demand.

Tight land resources

Building new red mud storage facilities requires a large amount of land, and China's land resources are relatively tight. It is particularly difficult to find suitable land for red mud storage construction in industrially developed areas.

Environmental Protection Requirements Increase

In recent years, China imposed increasingly stringent environmental protection requirements. The construction and management of red mud storage facilities need to comply with strict environmental standards, which has invisibly increased the difficulty and cost of building these facilities.

Technical Bottlenecks

Although there are some ways to recycle red mud, such as manufacturing construction materials and soil conditioners, technical and economic bottlenecks still limit the large-scale application of these methods, resulting in most red mud still needing to be stored in red mud storage facilities.

Solving the problem of insufficient capacity in red mud storage facilities requires multi-party collaboration, especially the joint promotion of technological innovation and policy support, to achieve effective treatment and utilization of red mud and promote the sustainable development of the aluminum industry.