Abstract:Common process routes and research status of extraction and recovery of iron from red mud at home and abroad were introduced. Red mud from Australian was tested by reduction roasting and magnetic separation, and melting iron process. Following microscopic observations, the vast majority of hematite and maghemite change into metallic iron during roasting. However, further treatment of roasted material to iron ore concentrate through milling and magnetic separation was not successful due to highly intergrown nature of reduced material with spinel phases. Metal iron yield is 99.4% above, and quality of molten iron meets the requirements of steelmaking under the optimum conditions including ratio of coke of 20%, reduction smelting time at 1 500 ℃ of 90 min, and ratio of calcium oxide to alumina of 2.0, which can achieve effective separation of slag and iron.. The slag can be disintegrated completely. Alumina leaching ratio is 91.12% from the slag under the conditions including dosage of Na2CO3 of 100 g/L, L/S=10/1, temperature of 80 ℃, and leaching time of 1.5 h.