Investigation of bauxite residue (red mud) in terms of its environmental risk

This research describes the method of neutron activation analysis (NAA) and Compton suppression for determination of some toxic elements in red mud (collected from Eti Seydisehir Aluminium Plant in Turkey). Furthermore, short-term leaching tests of elements were undertaken on red mud to evaluate in terms of the environmental impact. Morphological characterizations and qualitative element composition of red mud were also performed by SEM-EDX analysis. Fe, Al, Na, Ti and Ca contents in red mud were found significantly high. It can be concluded that some toxic elements may not easily mobile under the environmental conditions.