Red mud is a solid residue produced during the production of aluminum from bauxite in the Bayer process. 100 million tons of red mud is produced every year. To date, more than three billion tons have been produced in the world. It mostly consists of various aluminum oxides and hydroxides, such as gibbsite, boehmite, and diaspore, and iron oxides, such as hematite, but calcite, quartz, rutile, and ilmenite may also be present. In smaller quantities, it also contains elements such as vanadium (V), chromium (Cr), manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), cadmium (Cd), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), zinc (Zn), magnesium (Mg) and potassium (K), as well as rare earth elements. Its storage is a major environmental problem, which leads to the search for ways to recycle and reuse it. The main purpose of the master's thesis was to determine the thermal changes of minerals in red mud at different calcination temperatures and the effect on its reactivity. The samples were calcined at temperatures of 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 and 1000 °C. This was followed by X-ray powder diffraction analysis using the Rietveld method, which was used to determine the mineral composition of each sample, specific surface area measurements by gas sorption (BET), particle size measurements by laser granulometry, and determination of reactivity by isothermal calorimetry. Results showed that the amount of perovskite, gehlenite and nepheline increases with increasing temperature. Aluminum oxides such as gibbsite, boehmite and diaspore decompose at 400 °C, and calcite up to a temperature of 800 °C. Goethite decomposes into hematite and water as the temperature increases. Measurements of the specific surface area showed that the specific surface area of the samples increases up to the calcination temperature of 500 °C, but then decreases until the temperature of 1000 °C. The particle size increases with increasing temperature. The most reactive samples were samples calcined at temperatures above 700 °C. The essential parameters that influenced the reactivity of the samples are the content of the amorphous phase, the content of cancrinite and particle size.
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