**3. Academia's POV: benefits and value**

Although the benefits of university research to policy makers are well established, less attention has been given to the role that academic coursework can play. For this project, UNDP-Guinea prioritized academic objectivity. This relationship allowed the team of students and faculty to retain full academic freedom, to conceptualize the project's scope, and to reframe questions as warranted by iterative research results.

The team's independent position translated into access to subject-matter experts who might otherwise have treated their knowledge as proprietary, including international trade organizations, industry representatives, independent finance and science consultants, development aid organizations, and researchers from other academic institutions. Because the workshop format of the research project led to broad-based action items, Guinea's bauxite-aluminum industry representatives and regulators could consider its outcomes without concerns about conflicting agendas.

### **4. Production processes**

Bauxite, a sedimentary rock, is the primary ore used to produce aluminum. In turn, aluminum alloys are widely used [26] to manufacture all types of vehicles, mobile phones and electronics, machinery, building construction materials, and household items. Transforming bauxite into aluminum is a three-step industrial process (**Figure 2**), each step having social and environmental impacts (e.g., GHG emissions). Based on typical worldwide production data, approximately 5.54 t of extracted bauxite will produce 2.25 t of alumina which, in turn, will produce 1 t of aluminum [27].

*Sustainably Growing Guinea's Bauxite-Aluminum Industry DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.86471*

**Figure 2.** *Bauxite-aluminum process steps.*

Subsequent to Phase 1, and with facilitation support from UNDP-Guinea's Ousmane Bocoum, Widder and Pacioni expanded work on qualitative and quantitative drivers that included (a) field-based research in Guinea to isolate data gaps and to verify and/or update Phase 1 data; (b) interviewing executives from Guinea's Chamber of Mines and UNDP-Guinea's local ESG programs, in part to gain insight into the relationships among mining's actual (i.e., on-the-ground) environmental and social drivers; (c) beginning to explore methodologies for developing shared infrastructure in transportation and energy that can benefit communities and private-sector stakeholders durably; (d) developing an advocacy strategy to prove how sustainabilitybased best practices will reduce intense social pressures by expressing a longer-term growth approach that includes generational community needs, not only annual revenues; (e) leveraging a recently created consortium of bauxite mining companies in the Boké Region dedicated to cross-border biodiversity to disseminate and access critical data; and (f) leading a workshop to share sustainable findings and support collaboration and/or friendly competition among bauxite mining companies in Guinea.

The study was not comprehensive in scope but instead was limited to readily available data. Although financing mechanisms were discussed, neither a detailed financial analysis nor a review of potential capitalization strategies was completed. Rather, the results of a non-funded academic exercise were expanded in the hope that tangible progress in private-sector engagement could further the UNDP/GCF's

Although the benefits of university research to policy makers are well established, less attention has been given to the role that academic coursework can play. For this project, UNDP-Guinea prioritized academic objectivity. This relationship allowed the team of students and faculty to retain full academic freedom, to conceptualize the project's scope, and to reframe questions as warranted by

could consider its outcomes without concerns about conflicting agendas.

The team's independent position translated into access to subject-matter experts who might otherwise have treated their knowledge as proprietary, including international trade organizations, industry representatives, independent finance and science consultants, development aid organizations, and researchers from other academic institutions. Because the workshop format of the research project led to broad-based action items, Guinea's bauxite-aluminum industry representatives and regulators

Bauxite, a sedimentary rock, is the primary ore used to produce aluminum. In turn, aluminum alloys are widely used [26] to manufacture all types of vehicles, mobile phones and electronics, machinery, building construction materials, and household items. Transforming bauxite into aluminum is a three-step industrial process (**Figure 2**), each step having social and environmental impacts (e.g., GHG emissions). Based on typical worldwide production data, approximately 5.54 t of extracted bauxite will produce 2.25 t of alumina which, in turn, will produce 1 t of

**2.3 Limitations**

*Regional Development in Africa*

Readiness Programme.

iterative research results.

**4. Production processes**

aluminum [27].

**52**

**3. Academia's POV: benefits and value**

### **4.1 Bauxite-aluminum production**

**Bauxite mining**—In Guinea, bauxite is mined from open pits, crushed, and washed on site with water to reduce dust and remove some impurities. The material is then screened and dried, producing beneficiated bauxite and wastewater, and then transported to an alumina refinery. At most bauxite mines around the world, wastewater is retained in settling ponds for reuse [28]. This is likely true in Guinea; however, specific company practices are not publicly available. Most of Guinea's beneficiated bauxite is shipped abroad for refining.

**Alumina refining**—Beneficiated bauxite is then refined into alumina (i.e., aluminum oxide, Al2O3) using the Bayer process, wherein hot caustic soda is added to dissolve the aluminum compounds. Insoluble residue (i.e., red mud) is then filtered out, and alumina is precipitated. The red mud is washed to recover as much caustic as practical and then disposed.

**Aluminum smelting**—Smelting (anode paste production, electrolysis, and ingot casting) is the process by which alumina is dissolved in sodium aluminum hexafluoride (cryolite) at 1,000°C and then placed in a cell with carbon (typically graphite) cathodes and anodes. Electrolysis oxidizes the anode's carbon to carbon dioxide (CO2), and aluminum ions are reduced to aluminum metal at the cathode.

#### **4.2 Resource use and impacts**

Potential environmental impacts of bauxite-aluminum production include topsoil destruction, dust generation, overuse of freshwater supplies, wastewater releases, and GHG emissions. Resource inputs and non-GHG waste based on typical production data are summarized in **Table 1**, and qualitative summaries are provided below.

**Bauxite mining**—Mechanical mining causes dusty conditions, and airborne particulates are both a direct respiratory risk and the primary source of reddish deposits in the areas around. Energy inputs at this phase are mostly diesel used in bulldozers, excavators, and haul trucks. While Guinea's mining wastewater may be recovered as a general practice, there are reports of surface water impacts [22]. This means wastewater management may not be adequate to protect Guinea's allimportant waterways.

**Alumina refining**—Refining requires substantially more water and electricity than mining. Disposed red mud is high in pH and salinity. In addition, metals and natural background radioactivity from its parent bauxite are often concentrated in red mud. Although there are potential uses for red mud, the international rate of reuse is only 2–3% [32]. Other by-products of alumina refining include hydrocarbons, suspended solids in water, and air emissions of nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and mercury [28, 30]. Thus, risks to human health and surrounding ecosystems from alumina refining [33] dramatically eclipses.

**Aluminum smelting**—Smelting requires yet another order of magnitude increase in energy input. Water requirements are also significantly greater than


#### **Table 1.**

*Inputs for bauxite-aluminum production.*

mining or alumina refining. Smelting also produces air emissions of fluorides and hydrocarbons [28].
