Toxic waste could help treat water

SCIENTISTS at a Scottish university are working to turn a toxic industrial waste product into a material that can be used to treat contaminated water, it was announced today.

A team from the University of Glasgow has found encouraging signs that a substance known as “red mud” could be carbonised to make it safer. The carbonised red mud could also be used to remove heavy metals from water.

Red mud is highly alkaline, making it dangerous to handle and difficult to dispose. Instead, it is most often kept in large open-air holding ponds.

In 2010, one million cubic metres of red mud were accidentally released when a holding pond collapsed near an industrial plant in Ajka, Hungary, killing nine people and injuring 120.

The mud is a byproduct of the Bayer process, which extracts aluminium oxide from bauxite ore.

Dr Justin Hargreaves, senior lecturer in chemistry at the university, said: “We’ve been working [with] our partners in India since 2008 to examine ways in which red mud could be treated to make it safer. We’ve also found that this dangerous waste material could be reconfigured to be used to remove metals, such as lead and copper, from water.”

The study was carried out in partnership with the Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi.