Recovery of Metals from Red Mud using Composite Membranes

The objective of this study was to recover the ti(iv), fe(iii) and al(iii) ions from red mud solution by using composite membranes (poly n-ethyl aniline, poly n-methyl aniline, polypyrrole and poly 2-fluoro aniline membrane) which have different structures and cation exchange properties. the metals were taken to the solution by treating of red mud with acid solution and the recovery experiments of metals in the solution was carried out with various cation exchange composite membranes by donnan dialysis (dd) method. after the experiments, the flux values (j) and recovery factor (rf) for each metal were calculated. it was found that even the amount of al(iii) ion was more than the amount of ti(iv) ion in the red mud composition, the recovery of ti(iv) (26-29%) ion was higher than al(iii) (21-25%) ion. it is understood that valence of metals, hydration radius, mobility rate of ions, and membrane structure was significantly important for the separation of metals in the red mud. different flux values observed for different membranes were explained with the differences in membrane structures.