Navratna Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE) National Aluminium Company Limited (Nalco) on Tuesday launched a first-of-its-kind pilot project for the valorisation of bauxite residue, commonly known as red mud.
The proposed 50-kg-per-batch pilot plant will come up in collaboration with the Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (IMMT) and Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) at the Nalco Research and Technology Centre (NRTC) in Bhubaneswar to process bituminous coal fly ash.
The proposed facility will focus on recovering ferro-titanium alloy, metallic iron and rare earth elements (REEs), including scandium, from red mud, marking an important move towards productive utilisation of one of the key residues generated by the aluminium industry.
The ground-breaking ceremony for the pilot plant was held on Tuesday as part of Nalco’s broader push to develop indigenous, scalable and commercially viable technologies for industrial residue utilisation and critical mineral recovery.
The fly ash processing pilot plant has been jointly designed by IMMT and KIIT with support from Nalco, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Ministry of Mines.
The patented process enables the recovery of multiple value-added products, including alumina, calcium silicate for ceramic applications, quartz residue with potential applications in glassmaking and an iron hydroxide residue enriched in REEs.
Alumina, meanwhile, is the principal feedstock for aluminium production and an important industrial raw material. The recovery of such materials from secondary resources can improve resource efficiency, supplement primary sources and unlock additional value from industrial residues.
“The pilot plant will facilitate the extraction of useful materials from industrial residue rather than treating it merely as waste, potentially creating an additional resource stream for strategically important minerals and metals,” said Ramanuj Narayan, director of IMMT.
Rare earth elements have emerged as critical inputs for a wide range of strategic and high-technology sectors, including permanent magnets, electric mobility, renewable energy, electronics and defence.
At the same time, the recovery of alumina and other valuable materials from industrial residues can improve resource efficiency, supplement primary sources and unlock additional value from waste streams.
If successfully validated at pilot scale, the technology could provide a pathway for recovering multiple valuable materials from bauxite residue while reducing dependence on conventional primary resources.
Chairman and managing director of Nalco Brijendra Pratap Singh said the company is committed to leveraging research, innovation and strategic partnerships to convert industrial residues into valuable resources.
“The pilot-scale validation of indigenous technologies is an important step towards developing commercially viable solutions capable of strengthening resource efficiency, critical mineral security and the circular economy,” he said.
The fly ash processing plant is also expected to produce sufficient quantities of REE concentrate for further research and development on mixed rare earth recovery and separation. Such work will also support the development of downstream value-added products and help establish integrated recovery pathways for critical minerals.
“Aligned with national priorities on critical mineral security, circular economy and sustainable industrial development, Nalco is working towards integrated resource-recovery pathways through sustained R&D, strategic collaborations with premier national research institutions and pilot-scale validation of emerging technologies,” Singh added.
Jagdish Arora, director (projects & technical), Tapas Kumar Pattanayak, director (HR), Anil Kumar Singh, director (commercial) of Nalco, Jnyana Ranjan Mohanty, registrar of KIIT, and senior officials from Nalco, IMMT and KIIT were present on the occasion.
