DEVELOPMENT OF IRON POWDER FOR 3D PRINTING ADDITIVE

MANUFACTURING FROM BAUXITE TAILINGS

AMBURADUL TEAM :
ARIO BHISMO NUGROHO
DIDIK RAHMAT RIYADI
SULTHAN NAUFAL ATHARIF

SEPULUH NOPEMBER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

SUKOLILO, SURABAYA, EAST JAVA
60111
ABSTRACT
Red Mud is a by-product or impurity produced from the bayer process. The Bayer process is
one of the methods used to produce bauxite into alumina. Based on 2017 BPS data, Indonesia
has produced 1.3 million tons of bauxite throughout 2017. The characteristics of Red Mud itself
can be dangerous for the environment, Red Mud has a pH of around 10-12.5 or has a high
alkalinity. Red Mud has the main composition of Fe at 26.1%, Al at 13.8%, Si at 8.9%, and Na
at 6.1%. This research begins with electric arc furnace process, that will produced liquid pig
iron. After that, the liquid pig iron entered the gas atomizer, and generated Iron Powder. The
Iron that produced from 200.000 tonnes red mud mud is 63.190 Tonnes Iron Powder.
Keywords: Red Mud, Environment, Electric arc furnace, Pig iron, Gas Atomizer, Iron Powder
INTRODUCTION composition of Fe at 26.1%, Al at 13.8%, Si
at 8.9%, and Na at 6.1%.
Red Mud is a by-product or impurity
produced from the bayer process. The India as a country that produces 9
Bayer process is one of the methods used to million tons of Red Mud per year, doing
produce bauxite into alumina. Called “red” various research in the use of Red Mud. One
because it is slurry. Based on 2017 BPS of them is in a journal titled Development of
data, Indonesia has produced 1.3 million the Bricks from Red Mud by Industrial
tons of bauxite throughout 2017. Waste (Red Mud) written by Manoj
Bhaskar, Salim Akhtar, Geeta Batham in
Indonesian Goverment seems
2014. This research has been very clear both
serious on build bauxite smelters in
in terms of the details of the process, and
Indonesia. This is in line with Law No.
what bricks are going to create. However,
4/2009 concerning Minerals and Coal or
this research is still just a development, the
Minerba, concerning the obligation to build
cost production to create the bricks is not
smelters in order to increase economic
explained yet.
competitiveness. There are two bauxite
smelters, owned by PT Indonesia Chemical This research offers new
Alumina (ICA) and PT Well Harvest innovations to utilize Red Mud as a waste
Winning Alumina Refinery (WHW) which from mining production, to be used as raw
are already operating. Based on data from material for 3D Printing in powder form.
the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Through Materials and Metallurgical
Resources, five smelter smelters are being Proccess, This research begins with the
built with a total capacity of 15.87 million recovery of each element present in the Red
tons. Mud alloy, and then turning the liquid pig
iron into Iron Powder. This method is
The synchronized data can be
expected to be a solution in addition to the
interpreted that Indonesia will produce a
ceramic products that commonly produced
considerable amount of Red Mud. The
in previous research. The elements used is
characteristics of Red Mud itself can be
Fe as the element that have the most
dangerous for the environment, Red Mud
composition in Red Mud. In this study,
has a pH of around 10-12.5 or has a high
there will be the cost production of the
alkalinity. Red Mud has the main
proccess and the range of product’s price.
Additive Manufacturing (AM) component, instead of manufacturing it in
traditional terms, by using materials ranging
Also known as 3D printing, is a from photopolymers to thermoplastics,
transformative approach to industrial including paper. Since these materials are in
production that enables the creation of most cases not suitable for assessment
lighter, stronger parts and systems. AM
purposes a new approach has been created.
technologies fabricate models by fusing,
It has a similar ‘build up’ technique but uses
sintering, or polymerization of materials in
predetermined layers with no need of tools. metal as raw material. The process entails
AM makes possible the manufacture of the use of a gas metal arc fusion welding
complex geometries including internal part robot which deposits successive layers of
details that are not possible to manufacture metal in such a way that it forms a 3D solid
using machining and molding processes component. This process can also be
because the AM process does not require considered a manufacturing process for low
predetermined tool paths, draft angles, and volume production.
under cuts. In AM, the layers of a model are
formed by slicing computer-aided design MATERIALS AND METHODS
(CAD) data with professional software. 1. Recovery Fe from red mud
Layer thickness depends upon parameters,
the machine being used, and the thickness The proposed bauxite residue treatment
of the layer range from 10 to 200µm. comprises of four stages. The first stage is
the residue drying stage, as even red mud
Metal Powder dewatered in filter presses contains
Metal powders are the base significant amounts of moisture (up
materials for the production of metallic 25%w/w). This stage can take place in a
component through the conventional double skin rotary kiln, utilising the heat
powder metallurgy route or the emerging content of the hot off-gases from the EAF
field of additive manufacturing. In any of (Electric Arc Furnace). In the next stage of
there process routes, the properties of the the process the material feed of the EAF is
finished product depends on the character of prepared by mixing the dry red mud, coke
the base powder from which it is fines and appropriate fluxes to adjust the
producedwhich is equally dependent on the properties of the produced slag. This
process of production of the base powder. mixture is fed into the EAF where the raw
There are different methods for producing materials undergo reductive smelting at
metal powders with each method offering 1500°C and are transformed in three distinct
different particle morphology and purity. fluid phases : liquid slag, liquid pig iron and
These methods include crushing, off-gases. The off-gases after heat exchange
machining, atomization, etc. Metal powders in the red mud dryer are sent in a bag-house
use in additive manufacturing are assumed unit to remove dust particles prior to
to be nominall spherical, and have a particl releasing them to the atmosphere. The dust
size distribution that is designed to facilitate collected is recycled in the feed material.
good packing behaviour, such that the final The liquid pig iron and slag phases are
manufactured part has good mechanical separated by sequential pouring. The slag
properties and is fully dense. contains aluminium, silicon, calcium,
magnesium and titanium as oxides in the
3D Printing Metals slag phase.
Rapid prototyping is a recently
developed technique that ‘prints’ a
 the molten level. The atomizer aims to
contact the liquid metal stream with the gas
is at or close to the gas jet exit plane where
the highest jet velocities exist. It leads to an
efficient break-up of the liquid, resulting in
finer powders. The gas-to-metal ratio is the
dominant factor in controlling particle size.
Many gas atomizer designs are known.
They are classified as free fall, confined or
Fig 1. Iron recovery from red mud closed nozzles and internal mixing.
To produce a pig iron quality metal from
carbothermic reduction of the red mud, one
must define the C to Fe atomic ratio in the
feed material. A ratio of 1.5 corresponds to
stoichiometric ratio of hematite-carbon
reduction. [Balomenos, 2013]

Fig 3. Gas Atomizer

In gas atomization processes, the
Fig 2. Carbon-Iron reaction atomization pressures are typically in the
2. Gas Atomization rage 0.5-4 MPa, and gas velocities in the
nozzles range from Mach 1 to 3. The
Atomization is the process by which a powder particle size from the gas
liquid is disintegrated into droplets which atomization process is 20-63µm. [Neikov,
then solidify.[A. Lawley, 2001] Gas 2018]
Atomization is the process in which the
liquid metal is dispersed by a high-velocity 3. Equipment Selection
jet of air, nitrogen argon or helium. Gas From the process that have studied. These
atomization is used for the commercial are the equipments that involved in the
production of powders of copper, process, showed in the picture below.
aluminum and it’s alloy, titanium, precious
metal, iron, etc. The atomizing gas is
delivered through an annular orifice around
the nozzle at the converging angle. The
amount of gas delivered by the nozzle is
controlled by the size of the air gap and the
pressure and the temperature of the gas. The
rate of metal flow and resultant powder Fig 4. Equipment Used
particle size are influenced by aspirating
force, the nozzle metal orifice diameter, and
the vertical distance between the nozzle and
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In total the process for the complete
bauxite exploitation (for pig iron) will
increase the exergy efficiency from 3% in
the conventional Bayer process to 14% with
hydroelectric dam produced electricity, or
to 8% with coal-produced electricity, as the
solid waste of the Bayer process (red mud)
with chemical exergy of 0.33 MJ/kg is
replaced by pig iron, with total chemical Fig 6. Gas Atomized Powder
exergy 5.04 MJ/kg. From an economic CONCLUSION
perspective a solid waste with costly
disposal, is replaced, in a single step  The Development of Powdered
process, by two valuable by-products Metal for 3D printing additive
thereby significantly increasing the manufacturing from bauxite tailings
versatility and profit margin of the industry is divided to 3 main process, drying
Red Mud using rotary Dryer,
reduction process using Electric Arc
Furnace (EAF), and gas atomization
using Gas Atomizing.

 The Results Of drying Red Mud is

Dry Red Mud and the mass is
decrease through 11 % moisture
contents that applied in Red Mud.
Fig 5. Mass and Energy Balance 200.000 Ton x
100−11
= 178.000 Ton
100

Process experiments in a semi-industrial

 Electric Arc Furnace Process
scale Electric Arc Furnace were conducted.
and Gas Atomization generated
The iron recovery from 21 ton red mud is
63.190 Ton Iron Powder (Per Year).
7.45 ton Fe (Pig Iron).
ECONOMICAL ANALYSIS
After iron recovery process, the pig
iron will enter the gas atomization process. The Plant Design is about to produced
gas atomized powders are usually spherical 200.000 tonnes Red Mud per years.
with a lognormal size distribution. Average
200.000 Ton/Years
particle sizes are usually in range 10-300µm
with a standard deviation of about 2; oxygen 17.000 Ton/months
content is about 100ppm.
23 Ton/hours
 After determining The OPEX and CAPEX,
We calculate the sum of Cost Of Goods
Manufactured (COGM)
1. Amount of Pig iron after drying process
is
100−11
200.000 Ton x = 178.000 Ton
100
Fig 7. Plant Design
2. Amount of Liquid Pig Iron after Electric
The Moisture Contents of Red Mud Arc Furnace
is 11 %. It means that, the Dry Red Mud that
generated from Rotary Dryer Machine in 178.000 63.190 Ton
one hour is, 3. COGM Calculations
𝟏𝟎𝟎−𝟏𝟏
23 Ton x = 20,47 Ton 𝑂𝑃𝐸𝑋
𝟏𝟎𝟎 COGM = 𝐼𝑟𝑜𝑛 𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡
From this process of production, the capital 127932970938
expenditure (Per Year) COGM = 63190 𝑡𝑜𝑛

Table 1. Total Capital Expenditure COGM = Rp 2.024.576 / Ton

CAPEX PRICE (Rp) From COGM, we could estimate the

Excavator 210.000.000 Product’s Price in Rupiah per Tonnes Units.
Conveyor 142.800.000 We assume that the production could get
Rotary Dryer 48.400.000 into BEP, in about 5 years ( Normal
Electric Arc Furnace 8.400.000.000 Fabrique in large scale)
20 Tonnes Capacity ∑ 𝐶𝑎𝑝𝑒𝑥
Gas Atomizer 716.142.000 = 5 years
𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡 ′ 𝑠 𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑒−𝐶𝑂𝐺𝑀
1 Ha well for 1.000.000.000 11.517.342.000
Fabrique = 5 Years
𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡 ′ 𝑠 𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑒−2.024.576
2 Ha free land for Red 1.000.000.000
Product’s Price = Rp 2.305.492 / Ton
Mud Well
Total 11.517.342.000 REFFERENCES
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year Production 9(1), 31–38.
Table 2. Operational Expenditure Duda, T., & Raghavan, L. V. (2016). 3D
Metal Printing Technology. IFAC-
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PapersOnLine, 49(29), 103–110.
Electricity (Kwh) 124.180.810.000
Gasoline For 1.414.740.000 Nakano, T., & Ishimoto T. (2015). Powder-
Excavator (24 based Additive Manufacturing for
Hours Works) Development of Tailor-made Implants for
Red Mud’s Price 737.420.938 Orthopedic Applications. KONA Powder
Employees 1.600.000.000 and Particle Journal, 32, 75-84.
Total 127.932.970.938
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