Manufacturing Large Concrete Blocks from Red Mud for Infrastructure Applications

In Australian aluminium manufacturing, processing bauxite into alumina using the Bayer method produces huge amounts of toxic waste called red mud.

For the 21 million tonnes of alumina we produce each year, we get around 26.25 million tonnes of red mud. This waste requires special disposal as it is caustic and contains heavy metals which can leach into the environment. Current methods such as ponding and dry stacking take up valuable land, are expensive to maintain and don’t fully protect the environment against harmful leaching. Given the value that aluminium brings to the Australian economy as our highest earning manufacturing export, we need a better solution to manage red mud waste.

In this project, researchers from Adelaide University have partnered with BSMART to build on their previous work on utilising red mud to make concrete blocks. Having previously demonstrated that sand or cement in concrete can be replaced with red mud, project partners will now develop larger red mud concrete blocks suitable for applications such as retaining walls, coastal barriers and highway noise barriers. Commercialising these blocks will not only solve a waste challenge but will reduce the CO2 emissions associated with producing concrete and help limit our over-extraction of natural sand.