Team describes how to produce 'green' steel from toxic red mud

The production of aluminum generates around 180 million tons of toxic red mud every year. Scientists at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung, a center for iron research, have now shown how green steel can be produced from aluminum production waste in a relatively simple way. In an electric arc furnace similar to those used in the steel industry for decades, they convert the iron oxide contained in the red mud into iron using hydrogen plasma.