Powder Technology 214 (2011) 513–518

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Powder Technology
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Magnetite powder and kaolinite derived from waste iron ore tailings for
environmental applications
S.K. Giri a, N.N. Das b,⁎, G.C. Pradhan a
a
Department of Chemistry, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar-751 004, Orissa, India
b
Department of Chemistry, North Orissa University, Baripada-757 003, Orissa, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The present study demonstrated a feasible approach of utilizing waste iron ore tailings in synthesis of value
Received 22 February 2011 added products for environmental applications. The ferric iron recovered from waste iron ore tailings via acid
Received in revised form 28 August 2011 leaching followed by precipitation as ferric (hydr)oxide was used as feed stock to synthesis magnetite pow-
Accepted 11 September 2011
der by its reductive-roasting with charcoal. Physicochemical characterizations revealed the formation of suf-
Available online 16 September 2011
ficiently pure magnetite powder with ferric (hydr)oxide to charcoal ratio 1:2 and calcined at 1200 °C for 4 h.
Keywords:
The magnetic powder as such or coated with polyacrylic acid, was found efficient for removal of a model dye,
Iron ore tailings methylene blue from its solution within 2 min. The acid insoluble residue, generated after iron recovery from
Ferric (hydr)oxide iron ore tailings, was characterized as kaolinite. The residue with reasonably good surface area (119 m2 g− 1)
Charcoal was also found effective for adsorptive removal of dyes including methylene blue and can find large scale ap-
Reduction roasting plications in wastewater treatment. Moreover the present study provided further inputs for possible alterna-
Acid insoluble residue tive uses of waste iron ore tailings to partly reduce its associated disposal problems.
Dye adsorption © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction industries. The physical beneficiation of iron ores through gravity

The solid wastes, generated from various mining and industrial ac-
tivities, continue to be a major environmental concern. Fast deteriora-
tion of the environment due to rapid industrialization leads the
environmental agencies to formulate several quantitative measures
in respect of generation, treatment, transport, handling, disposal
and recycling of solid/liquid wastes over the period [1–6]. As a result
there is an increasing interest in search of possible alternative uses of
solid wastes as such e.g. in adsorption and catalysis or as the starting
materials to derive value added products having different applica-
tions before their final discharge [4,7–11].
Globally the estimated quantity of waste generation was 12 bil-
lion tonnes in the year 2002 of which 11 billion tonnes were industri-
al wastes and 1.6 billion tonnes of solid wastes is expected to be
generated annually by the year 2025 [12]. In India, the generation of
all non-hazardous inorganic industrial wastes is estimated to be
200 million tonnes, out of which approximately 80 million tonnes
are due to mine tailings of mainly from iron, copper and zinc ores pro-
cessing [2]. As per record, India represents the fifth position of iron
ore deposits in the world and the seventh position in production of
iron ore concentrate. After extraction from mines, the iron ores are
physically beneficiated to enrich the iron value for downstream
⁎ Corresponding author at: P. G. Department of Chemistry, North Orissa University,
Takatpur, Baripada-757 003, Orissa, India. Tel.: + 91 6792 252088 (O); fax: + 91
6792 253908.
E-mail address: dasnn64@rediffmail.com (N.N. Das).
concentration, magnetic separation and flotation processes generates
a huge amount of tailings as rejects for discharge or for further pro-
cessing to make them useful. Although the iron content in these tail-
ings is found as high as ~45 wt.%, the available technologies have
limitations for their further beneficiation and direct use in extraction
due to their extremely fine sizes. The major iron phases detected in
iron ore tailings are hematite, goethite and magnetite. The iron ore
mines, located at Joda-Badbil, Orissa are among several mines in
India producing a huge amount of iron ore tailings which are kept
in the tailing ponds as rejects for discharge. Immediate attentions
are needed to find some alternative uses of iron ore tailings in order
to avoid future environmental threat. Several efforts have been
made during the last decades for possible alternative utilization of
iron ore tailings as such in different domains like adsorption process-
es [11], production of ceramic tiles [4], clinker [13], forsterite refracto-
ry etc. [14,15], or as source of iron and silica for synthesis of magnetite
[16] and other value added products [7], respectively. The use of
resulted residue after iron recovery from iron ore tailings has also
been demonstrated for preparation of cementitious materials [8,9].
The present study aims (i) to synthesize magnetite powder using
the recovered iron from iron ore tailings and (ii) to assess the poten-
tial of magnetite powder and acid insoluble residue after iron recov-
ery as adsorbents towards a common organic dye, methylene blue.
Moreover, this is an attempt towards optimum utilization of iron
ore tailings to partly reduce the existing iron ore tailings deposits in
different iron ore industries and their associated environmental
problems.

0032-5910/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.powtec.2011.09.017
514 S.K. Giri et al. / Powder Technology 214 (2011) 513–518

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Materials

Iron ore tailings, collected from the tailing ponds of iron ore indus-
tries (Joda-Badbil, Orissa, India), were first screened for their iron
content and one sample with relatively high iron content (~ 40%)
was selected for this study (Table 1). Charcoal containing 96% of car-
bon was used to synthesize the magnetite powder. Methylene blue
(Qualigens) and polyacrylic acid (Merck) were used as received for
adsorption experiments. All other chemicals used in this work were
of AR/GR grades.

2.2. Preparation of magnetite (Fe3O4) from iron ore tailing Fig. 1. Particle size analysis of iron ore tailings.

Based on the optimized set of conditions for almost complete dis-

solution, a weighed amount of iron ore tailings was digested with 1:1
HCl (solid:liquid = 1:6) at 80 °C for 1 h to leach out the iron content.
After cooling, the acid insoluble residue was separated by filtration,
washed with minimum amount of distilled water, dried in air and
stored for further characterization and adsorption studies. The clear
filtrate (FeCl3) along with washings was treated with calculated
amount of concentrated ammonia under stirring to yield ferric
(hydr)oxide. The precipitate was washed thoroughly with 1.0% HCl
followed by distilled water to remove the excess ammonia and solu-
ble impurities and finally dried in air oven at 100 ± 3 °C for 1 h to re-
move moisture. The dried ferric (hydr)oxide was used to prepare
magnetite powder through pyrometallurgical reduction route using
CO, generated in-situ from the charcoal, as the reducing agent. The
mixture of ferric (hydr)oxide and charcoal with varying Fe to C wt.
ratio was heated in a chamber-furnace in the temperature range
900–1300 °C for 4 h. The reduction was carried out in a closed cruci-
ble without maintaining inert atmosphere inside furnace. The magne-
tite powder along with other iron oxides thus formed was separated
from unburned charcoal and generated ash by gravity separation
method using bromoform as the solvent. The bromoform layer con-
taining magnetite and other iron oxide like hematite was decanted
off, washed thoroughly with acetone to remove the residual bromo-
form and then with distilled water. Finally magnetite particles were
magnetically separated from impurities in aqueous medium to get
sufficiently pure magnetite powder. The separation of iron oxide
from unburned charcoal using bromoform is, however, limited to lab-
oratory scale. Alternatively, the reduction of ferric (hydr)oxide may
be carried out by CO, generated ex-situ, in order to avoid the separa-
tion step.
prepared air dried ferric (hydr)oxide and magnetite powder were
carried out by conventional wet chemical analyses while AAS (Perkin
Elmer, 3100) or ICP-OES (Perkin Elmer, 4300) was used for analyses
of trace elements. The Fe(II) content in magnetite powder, after its
dissolution with 1:1 HCl under CO2 atmosphere, was determined by
titrating with standard dichromate solution [17].
The surface morphology of iron ore tailings and magnetite pow-
der, both coated with carbon, was scanned by using Electron Probe
Micro analyzer (JEOL 8200, operated at an accelerating potential of
15 kV on the primary electron beam) and Scanning Electron Micro-
scope (JEOL JSM-6390 LV at operating voltage of 15 kV), respectively.
Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) patterns were recorded on a Mini-
flex II, Rigaku, Japan at scanning speed of 1.2° min − 1 using Ni filtered
CuKα (30 kV, 15 mA) radiation. The surface area of acid insoluble res-
idue was determined by BET method using a Surface and porosity an-
alyzer (Quantachrome, Novawin).
2.4. Adsorption studies
The adsorption characteristics of magnetite powder and acid in-
soluble residue were performed by batch equilibrium technique at
constant pH and temperature (30 ± 0.2 °C) using methylene blue as
adsorbate. Typically 50 ml of methylene blue solutions in different
concentrations at pH 5.1 ± 0.1 were mechanically shaken with a
fixed amount of acid insoluble residue (2.0 g L − 1 g) for a predeter-
mined time (~ 1 h) to reach the equilibrium. The concentrations of re-
sidual methylene blue at equilibrium, after separation of acid
insoluble residue by centrifugation, were computed by measuring

2.3. Physicochemical characterizations

The particle size distribution of the selected iron ore tailings was
carried out using CILAS (1064 LIQUID). The size analysis (Fig. 1) indi-
cates high degree of fineness of the iron ore tailings with d10 of
4.81 μm, d50 of 13.21 μm and d90 of 20.13 μm. The chemical analyses
for major elements in iron ore tailings, acid insoluble residue,

Table 1
Chemical analyses (in part) of the iron ore tailings (IOT) and acid insoluble residue
(AIR).

Component Wt. % in

IOT AIR

Fe2O3 55.78 ± 0.11 0.61 ± 0.13

SiO2 16.58 ± 0.13 59.19 ± 0.16
Al2O3 15.46 ± 0.16 24.10 ± 0.24
P2O5 – 1.61 ± 0.10
CaO 1.44 ± 0.09 –
Fig. 2. XRD peaks of (a) waste iron ore tailings, (b) ferric (hydr)oxide, (c) acid insoluble
MgO 0.13 ± 0.05 –
residue, and (d) magnetite powder. (*), H, G, M and K indicates the impurity phase, he-
LOI 9.11 ± 0.21 15.3 ± 0.30
matite, goethite, magnetite, and kaolinite, respectively.
 S.K. Giri et al. / Powder Technology 214 (2011) 513–518 515

the absorbances at 665 nm (λmax) using UV–vis spectrophotometer
(Systronics, 2204). The amounts of dye adsorbed (qe) and the effi-
ciency (%) of acid insoluble residue were calculated by using Eq. (1):
qe ¼ ðCt –Ce ÞV=m
where qe, Ci, Ce, V and m represent the amount of methylene blue
adsorbed (mg g − 1), the initial concentration (mg L − 1), the final
concentration (mg L − 1), volume of the solution (L) and amount of
acid insoluble residue (g), respectively.
In the case of magnetite powder, both neat as well as in-situ poly-
acrylic acid coated magnetite powder were used for adsorption of
ð1Þ methylene blue. In-situ coating of polyacrylic acid with ion exchange
groups on magnetite powder could further increase the adsorption of
cationic methylene blue at alkaline pH [18]. Typically 0.1 g of magne-
tite powder, dispersed in 8 ml 4% sodium salt of polyacrylic acid was
allowed for 10 min for in-situ coating of polyacrylic acid over

Fig. 3. EPMA compositional map of waste iron ore tailings sample at 20 μm and 5 μm.
516 S.K. Giri et al. / Powder Technology 214 (2011) 513–518

magnetite powder. Then desired volume of methylene blue solution Table 2

was added to achieve different methylene blue concentrations in Optimization of parameters for magnetite yields from ferric (hydr)oxide by reduction-
roasting; reduction time, 4 h.
the range 1.6 to 32 mg L − 1. For neat sample, 0.1 g of magnetite pow-
der was added to the desired concentrations of methylene blue. The Fe(hydr)oxide Charcoal Roasting temp. Magnetite yield % of Total Fe
pH of the adsorbate solutions, both with neat and polyacrylic acid (g) (g) (°C) (g) magnetite (%)

coated samples, was adjusted to ~ 9.0. In comparison to acid insoluble 5 10 900 1.11 ± 0.16 22.20 62.69
residue, the adsorption of methylene blue was quite rapid and the ad- 5 10 1000 1.22 ± 0.23 24.40 64.50
5 10 1100 2.29 ± 0.32 45.80 68.84
sorption equilibrium was attained in about 2 min. As such all the ad-
5 10 1200 2.72 ± 0.11 54.40 71.64
sorption experiments with magnetite powder were performed up to 5 10 1300 2.85 ± 0.20 57.00 71.20
2 min and the concentrations of residual methylene blue, after mag- 6 9 1200 3.50 ± 0.21 58.33 –
netic separation of magnetite powder, were determined spectropho- 7 8 1200 4.09 ± 0.25 58.42 –
tometrically as described above. The adsorption data of acid insoluble 8 7 1200 4.65 ± 0.30 58.13 –
9 6 1200 4.88 ± 0.13 54.22 –
residue and magnetite powder were fitted to Langmuir and Freun-
10 5 1200 5.11 ± 0.17 51.10 –
dlich models to derive various adsorption parameters.

3. Results and discussion

3.2. Optimization of synthetic conditions and characterization of
3.1. Iron ore tailings and optimization of iron recovery magnetite

Chemical analyses of the selected iron ore tailings (Table 1) show
that iron, silica and alumina are the major constituents. More than
9.0 wt.% loss of ignition of iron ore tailings is primarily due to pres-
ence of substantial amount of moisture and structural water. The
XRD pattern of iron ore tailings (Fig. 2a) also shows the characteristic
peaks for goethite (JCPDS: 29-0713) along with peaks due to hema-
tite (JCPDS: 33-0664) and magnetite (JCPDS: 19-0629). However,
the characteristic peaks of kaolinite (JCPDS: 06-0221) either appeared
as low intensity peaks or overlapped with the peaks of different iron
phases. The EPMA of iron ore tailings at 20 μm and 5 μm (Fig. 3) re-
veals that the grains are composed of aluminum iron silicate
[19,20]. Free quartz grains are occasionally present in the range 4–
5 μm in size as indicated with an arrow (viewed on 20 μm). Large alu-
minum iron silicate grain was also obtained in which fine iron-rich
particles are clotted (viewed on 5 μm).
In order to establish the optimal conditions for iron recovery from
iron ore tailings, the concentrations of HCl are varied from 15 to 85%
(v/v) keeping the temperature and solid:liquid ratio fixed at 80 °C
and 1:6, respectively. The iron recovery increases with increasing
acid concentration and 100% recovery is observed within 15 min
with 85% HCl while 45 min is required with 50% HCl for same per-
centage of recovery (Fig. 4). As such, further experiments on iron re-
covery as FeCl3 are carried out by digesting iron ore tailings with 50%
HCl at 80 °C for 1 h. At the end of digestion, the acid insoluble residue
of iron ore tailings is separated by filtration, washed and kept for fur-
ther characterization and adsorption studies.
Among several possible routes for preparation of magnetite pow-
der using the freshly precipitated ferric (hydr)oxide precursor from
iron ore tailings, the reduction-roasting method in presence of carbo-
neous material (viz. charcoal) is adopted in this study. As evident
from XRD (Fig. 2b), the ferric (hydr)oxide precursor is primarily con-
stituted of goethite and hematite. The results of magnetite yields
under varying conditions of reduction-roasting of ferric (hydr)oxide
are presented in Table 2.
At fixed ferric (hydr)oxide to charcoal ratio (1:2), the yield of
magnetite is progressively increased with increase of reduction tem-
perature from 900 to 1300 °C. The fused metallic mass obtained at
1300 °C is, however, difficult to grind. Also the iron content
(71.20%) of the resulted product is marginally lower than that
obtained by reduction-roasting at 1200 °C (71.64%). Moreover, the
product obtained by reduction-roasting at 1200 °C is much easier to
grind. Hence further optimization of ferric (hydr)oxide to charcoal
ratio is carried out keeping their total mass (15 g) and temperature
(1200 °C) constant. It is seen that the increase of ferric (hydr)oxide
to charcoal ratio (w/w) in the mixture (0.66–1.143) results maximum
yield (~ 58%) with negligible variation. Further increase of ferric
(hydr)oxide content in the reducing mixture decreases the magnetite
yield in the final product. As such the optimum ferric (hydr)oxide to
charcoal wt. ratio is kept fixed at 1.143 in all further experiments for
synthesis of magnetite powder. This also generates less amount of
CO2 and satisfies one of the primary requirements for any process in
respect of release of gaseous pollutants.
The XRD of magnetite powder (Fig. 2d) primarily shows the char-
acteristic peaks of magnetite and is in good agreement with the stan-
dard magnetite phase (JCPDS: 19-0629). The slight broadening of the

Fig. 4. Optimization of iron recovery from waste iron ore tailings using different con-
centration of HCl (a) 15% (b) 30% (c) 50% (d) 65% and (e) 85% HCl. Fig. 5. SEM image of magnetite powder.
 S.K. Giri et al. / Powder Technology 214 (2011) 513–518 517

Freundlich (Eq. (3)) isotherms. The linearized form of Langmuir

equation is given by:

Ce =qe ¼ 1=bQ 0 þ Ce =Q 0 ð2Þ

where Ce is the equilibrium methylene blue concentration in solution

(mg L − 1), qe is the equilibrium methylene blue uptake per unit mass
of adsorbent (mg g − 1), Q0 is the maximum adsorption capacity
(mg g − 1) and b is Langmuir constant (energy of adsorption). The
Freundlich equation may be expressed as:

log ðqe Þ ¼ 1=nðlog Ce Þ þ log K ð3Þ

Fig. 6. Effect of initial methylene blue concentrations on percentage of adsorption and
uptake by magnetite powder, at pH ~ 9 and magnetite powder (1.0 g L− 1).
peaks is more likely due to the poor crystallinity and small crystallite
of magnetite [21]. Appearance of a few low intensity peaks (marked
with asterisk) in the XRD pattern is presumably due to other iron
oxide phases (like Fe2O3) associated with magnetite as impurity.
Chemical analyses show that the total iron and Fe 2+ contents in the
prepared sample are 71.64 and 23.74 wt.%, respectively as against
theoretically calculated values of 72.46 and 24.15 wt.%, indicating
the purity of magnetite powder. The SEM of magnetite powder
(Fig. 5) also shows low crystallinity of the material with non-
uniform grain size [22]. Further it shows that the agglomerated mag-
netite powder is in the sub-micrometer range.
3.3. Adsorption characteristics of magnetite powder
The use of magnetite as adsorbent for wastewater treatment is
one among different possible large scale applications and several
studies have been made in recent years [18,23,24]. It is found that
the adsorption efficiency of magnetite particles largely depends on
their size and different coating on their surface. Since the magnetite
powder in this study is synthesized through reduction-roasting of fer-
ric (hydr)oxide at high temperature, it is expected to exhibit low ad-
sorption capacity for different contaminants in comparison to
magnetite nanoparticle. The results of methylene blue adsorption
with varying methylene blue concentrations (1.6–32 mg L − 1) at
pH ~ 9.0 are presented in Fig. 6. Although the percentage of adsorption
decreases with increase of methylene blue concentrations, the overall
methylene blue uptake increases from 0.72 to 8.8 mg g − 1 when the
concentration of methylene blue increases from 1.6 to 32.0 mg L − 1.
To derive different adsorption parameters, the equilibrium methylene
blue adsorption data are fitted to widely used Langmuir (Eq. (2)) and
where qe and Ce represent the same as stated above while K and n are
Freundlich constants and considered to be relative indicators of ad-
sorption capacity (mg g − 1) and adsorption intensity, respectively.
The derived adsorption parameters from the least square fittings of
Langmuir and Freundlich equations are given in Table 3 along with
the same reported for other relevant adsorbents. The Freundlich
isotherm is slightly better fitted (R2 = 0.99) in comparison to Langmuir
(R2 = 0.968) indicating the heterogeneous nature of the adsorbent sur-
face. The derived monolayer adsorption capacities for neat magnetite
powder (Q0 = 20.74 mg g − 1) and in-situ coated magnetite powder
(Q0 = 39.1 mg g− 1) are, however, relatively lower than those observed
for polyacrylic acid-bound (Q0 = 199 mg g− 1 [18]) magnetite nanopar-
ticles primarily due to bigger size of the magnetite particles in the
present case. Further studies are required to assess the potential of syn-
thesized magnetite powder as such or coated with different surfactants
for their practical use wastewater treatment.
3.4. Acid insoluble residue and its adsorption characteristics
The chemical analyses show (Table 1) that Si and Al are the major
constituents of acid insoluble residue along with minor amounts of Fe
and P. The XRD pattern of acid insoluble residue (Fig. 2c) primarily
exhibits the characteristic peaks of kaolinite (JCPDS: 06-0221) [25].
In order to make the overall process of magnetite powder synthesis
economically viable, it is desirable to find some potential uses for
acid insoluble residue of iron ore tailings as such or in preparation
of inorganic polymers, ceramic, polymer composites etc. [26, 27]. Al-
though there are reports on the use of acid insoluble residue for pro-
duction of cementitious materials [8, 9], its use as cheap but effective
adsorbent for water treatment is hardly researched till date. More-
over, the residue contains significant amounts of structural water/hy-
droxyl groups with kaolinite as the only phase which can exhibit good
adsorption properties. In addition the surface area of acid insoluble
residue (119 m 2/g) is relatively higher than those that occurred nat-
urally [28]. Keeping these in view, a preliminary adsorption study
was carried taking a methylene blue as adsorbent and the results
are compared with those reported for naturally occurring kaolinite.
The adsorption data at fixed pH ~ 5.0 and acid insoluble residue
dose (2.0 g L − 1) with varying methylene blue concentration (1.6–
32 mg L − 1) indicates that methylene blue adsorption decreases

Table 3
Adsorption parameters derived from Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms for adsorption of MB on MP and AIR.

Sample description Initial [MB], pH Langmuir Freundlich Ref

mg L− 1
Q0 (mg MBg− 1) b (l/g) K (mg MB g− 1) 1/n

Magnetite powder 1.6–32 9.21 20.74 3.59 1.28 0.7345 This work
Magnetite powder (in-situ coated with polyacrylic acid) 1.6–32 9.02 39.1 3.59 3.37 0.637 This work
Polyacrylic acid-bound iron oxide magnetite nanoparticles 50–800 9.0 199 – – – [18]
Acid insoluble residue 1.6–32 5.1 15.98 5.50 5.35 0.224 This work
Raw kaolin 13.99 27.49 14.85 0.151 [30]
Pure kaolin 15.55 91.87 16.39 0.070 [30]
Calcined raw kaolin 7.59 13.44 6.57 0.075 [30]
Calcined pure kaolin 8.88 56.31 9.01 0.061 [30]
518 S.K. Giri et al. / Powder Technology 214 (2011) 513–518
Fig. 7. Effect of initial methylene blue concentrations on percentage of adsorption and
uptake by acid insoluble residue, at pH ~ 5 and acid insoluble residue (1.0 g L− 1).
with increase of its concentration (Fig. 7). The overall uptake, howev-
er, increases from 1.9 to 13.2 mg g − 1 when the concentration of
methylene blue increases from 1.6 to 32 mg L − 1. The maximum
value of methylene blue uptake is relatively lower than that reported
(38.59 mg g − 1) for acid washed kaolinite primarily due to different
experimental conditions and use of relatively higher initial methylene
blue concentration [29]. The equilibrium adsorption data (Table 3)
are better fitted to the Langmuir adsorption isotherm (R 2 = 0.99)
than the Freundlich adsorption isotherm (R 2 = 0.982). Further, the
derived monolayer adsorption capacity (Q0 = 15.98 mg g − 1) for
acid insoluble residue compares well with the values reported (see
Table 3) for adsorption of methylene blue on untreated and calcined
raw/pure kaolin [30].
4. Conclusions
The present study examines the feasibility for comprehensive utili-
zation of waste iron ore tailings. Sufficiently pure magnetite powder
(98.30% as Fe3O4) in the sub micrometer range with good yield
(~58%) can be synthesized through a multi step process involving acid
leaching of iron from iron ore tailings followed by its precipitation as
ferric (hydr)oxide and reduction-roasting of ferric (hydr)oxide with
charcoal under optimized conditions. The purity of magnetite powder
is further evident from its XRD pattern and the estimated value of Fe
(T)/Fe(II) ratio. The magnetite powder as such or coated with poly-
acrylic acid rapidly removes the organic dyes from their aqueous solu-
tions and may find application as adsorbent in wastewater treatment.
The insoluble residue, generated after the recovery of iron value from
iron ore tailings, is characterized as kaolinite. The residue with reason-
ably good surface area (119 m2 g− 1) is found effective for adsorptive
removal of methylene blue from concentrations as low as
~1.0 mg L − 1. The maximum uptake for methylene blue compares well
with the values reported for natural kaolinite. Moreover, the present
study is an attempt towards best possible utilization of the waste iron
ore tailings that can partially reduce its associated disposal problems.
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