Partners on the RIS RESTORE project funded by the EIT RawMaterials met on September 10 in Zvornik in the management of the company “Alumina”. The meeting was attended by representatives of four teams from Bosnia and Herzegovina: Federal Institute of Geology, Faculty of Mining, Geology and Civil Engineering, University of Tuzla, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Banja Luka, and the meeting was chaired by the Director of Integrated Protection B.Eng. Dragana Smiljanic.
The participation of “Alumina” in this project is extremely important since “Alumina” is one of the leading manufacturers of various types of alumina, hydrates, zeolites, silica gel and water glass that are used in various industries. The company currently exports over 95% of its products to more than 40 countries in the EU, Asia, Africa, USA, South and Central America and others. Alumina is the only factory in the Western Balkans that processes bauxite according to the Bayer process and produces various types of hydrates and alumina.
The company currently employs about 1.520 workers, has more than 800 suppliers and business partners from Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Thousands of workers rely on the factory’s operations, primarily in Zvornik and the Birač region.
During the processing of bauxite ore, which comes from several deposits in Bosnia and Herzegovina, “Alumina” generates waste material called “red mud”. However, red mud still carries great potential as a secondary raw material. Extraction of useful minerals from such secondary raw materials has been one of the leading research branches in recent years, as well as many successful investments in the economy. For example, Vietnam processes almost all of the red mud from this country into useful products, and China is also achieving a recycling rate of about 5% and is making further progress. It is estimated that there are about 80 million tons of red mud in several landfills in Europe. The coordinator of the project is the Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute, and the partners are, in addition to those mentioned from B&H, also prestigious universities and institutes from Greece, Spain, Hungary, Switzerland, Croatia and Austria. During the project, the partners will make efforts to define the potentials for processing red mud into useful products, which would be a significant step towards reducing the amount of this waste, so far deposited. It is of great importance for our country that the valorization of red mud would lead to the creation of more workplaces in an already highly successful company such as “Alumina”, which is undoubtedly the most successful company in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the moment.
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