Bauxite residue is one of the most important by-products from the alumina industry with no
commercial use till now. The utilisation of bauxite residue through pelletising with different lime
additions, hydrogen reduction, and smelting has been studied in this work. Three different types of
green pellets were made with varying calcite-to-bauxite residue ratio and subsequently sintered at
elevated temperatures. The sintered pellets were isothermally reduced at 1000°C under hydrogen
gas followed by smelting of the reduced pellets in argon at 1500°C. Smelting of the reduced pellets
leads to the recovery of metallic iron and the formation of a leachable calcium aluminate slag. X-ray
diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) were used to characterise the phases
and microstructural analysis. The iron produced in the smelting process has a high purity, above
99.5 wt per cent. While the iron content of the slags is quite low, and the slags shows variations of
krotite (CaAl2O4), gehlenite (Ca2Al2SiO7), and perovskite (CaTiO3) phases based on the variation of
calcite addition. It was found that the more calcite addition in pelletising yields higher percentage of
krotite phase as compared to lower calcite-containing pellets. Employing quantitative XRD analysis,
the krotite phase fraction was found approximately 85 wt per cent for higher calcite-added pellet, and
around 74 wt per cent for lower calcite-added pellet. FactSage™, ver 8.1 (Thermfact and GGTTechnologies)
thermodynamic software was used to evaluate the obtained experimental data, they
both revealed that the