Vedanta installs country’s first red mud powder plant

Vedanta Refinery has installed a red mud powder plant at its Lanjigarh alumina refinery in Kalahandi, Odisha. The automatic red mud powder plant is the country’s first of its kind initiative by an alumina refinery. The industry has been facing problems with red mud disposal which is a side-product of the Bayer process.

Vedanta developed this innovative technology in-house which helps the alumina refinery to minimise consumption of caustic soda by 10 to 13 kg per ton of alumina. The facility also curtails the acreage of land necessary for disposal of red mud by 40 to 50 per cent as well as lessens wet red mud storage.

The company has also installed a bio-gas plant to utilize organic waste. The plant will produce bio-gas from the waste which can be deployed in numerous ways. All the waste generated from the refinery including water can be recycled at the facility.

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Vedanta is also converting fly-ash, a waste product, to cement-free green concrete which has been known as Cold Setting Geo-Polymer Concrete.

The other initiative includes Vanadium sludge recovering, usage of fly ash and lime grit for brick manufacturing, ESP at both power plant and Calciner, Bag filter at Alumina handing plant, dry fog system at transfer points of bauxite handling area and coal handling plant and continuous ambient air quality monitoring in and around the plant premises.