Process for the extraction, from bauxite, from red mud resulting from the processing of bauxite, and from chemically similar materials, of products of industrial interest, separated from each other

A process for the extraction, from bauxite, from red mud resulting from the processing of bauxite, and from chemically similar materials, of products of industrial interest, separated from each other, said process comprising the following steps:

• optional grinding and/or drying of the to be treated material at a temperature from 60 to 250° C.;
• optional roasting of the dried material;
• melting of the resulting material;
• keeping of the melting bath at a temperature higher than 1350° C.;
• blowing inside of the melting bath of chlorine, or at least an in situ chlorine generating compound, optionally together with at least an inert gas;
• optional stirring of the melted bath in order to favour the chlorine diffusion and kinetics of the process reactions;
• collecting of the gaseous flow exiting from the melting bath and sending thereof, keeping the temperature above 1500° C., to a controlled cooling system;
• controlled cooling of the gaseous flow with selective condensation of chlorides of the different elements of industrial interest, like sodium chloride, iron (Ill) chloride, gallium (Ill) chloride, aluminum chloride, titanium (IV) chloride and silicon (IV) chloride;
• separated collection of individual chlorides
• optional further purification of each of collected chlorides by fractional distillation.