Archive | 2019
Environmental Friendly Transformation of the First and Oldest Alumina Refinery in the World
Abstract
Since 2006, Alteo Gardanne Alumina Refinery has launched a significant environmental program to improve its management of bauxite residue as well as wastewater disposal. Red mud from bauxite residue had been sent to the ‘Fosse de Cassidaigne’, a trench in the Mediterranean Sea via a 55 km long pipe, for 50 years. Due to ever improving environmental standards and the need to adhere to new regulations, Alteo rethought its methodology by implementing 3 major operational changes: \n \n \nRed mud bauxite residue dehydration with press filters (from 2006) in order to directly stack the residue in a small dedicated area, 4 km away from the refinery \n \n \nSuspended solid elimination in wastewater still discharged to the sea with pressure filter technology (since 2016) \n \n \nWaste water pH reduction and dissolved metal removal, in particular aluminum and arsenic, by CO2 neutralization process (planned for 2019) with precipitated solid recycling in the Bayer process. \n \n \n \nFurther improvements are already under investigation, and will be presented as a conclusion of this environmental friendly transformation of the first and oldest alumina refinery in the world.