| Summary: | In this study, a novel process was established for extraction of Fe and Al from a complex high aluminum iron ore (33.43% Fe<sub>total</sub> and 19.09% Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>). The main steps in the proposed process included pre-reducing high alumina iron ore and subsequent smelting to produce pig iron and rich-alumina slag, followed by alkaline leaching of the slag to obtain sodium aluminate solution and a clean slag. When smelting the pre-reduced high alumina iron ore pellets at 1625 °C for 30 min with a slag basicity of 0.40, the pig iron yielded 97.08% Fe and extracted 0.13% Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3,</sub> together with an iron recovery of 94.54%. In addition, more than 68.93% Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> was recovered by leaching the slag, which was achieved by firstly roasted the slag at 900 °C for 2 h and then alkaline leaching at 95 °C for 2 h with a liquid-to-solid ratio of 10 mL/g. In addition, the alkaline leaching slag could potentially be used as raw material for construction purpose, which mainly consisted of SiO<sub>2</sub> and CaO.
|
|---|
