Utilization of red mud in cement production: a review

Red mud is a solid waste residue of the digestion of bauxite ores with caustic soda for alumina production. Its disposal remains a worldwide issue in terms of environmental concerns. During the past decades, extensive work has been done by a lot of researchers to develop various economic ways for the utilization of red mud. One of the economic ways is using red mud in cement production, which is also an efficient method for large-scale recycling of red mud. This paper provides a review on the utilization of red mud in cement production, and it clearly points out three directions for the use of red mud in cement production, namely the preparation of cement clinkers, production of composite cements as well as alkali-activated cements. In the present paper, the chemical and mineralogical characteristics of red mud are summarized, and the current progresses on these three directions are reviewed in detail.