Abstract
Mining and metallurgical wastes contain reactive Fe-, Al-, Ca-, Mg-, and Mn-bearing phases. These phases can be used for water treatment. Their performance depends on mineral accessibility, processing history, and water chemistry rather than waste identity alone. This review compares tailings, slags, red mud, and leaching residues for inorganic and organic contaminant removal, focusing on mechanisms, modification intensity, and validation. Cations are removed by ion exchange, surface complexation, and precipitation, whereas anion removal relies on Fe/Al sites, Ca-mediated mineral formation, and redox reactions. Organic treatment proceeds through adsorption or catalytic transformation and generally requires activation or additional functional phases. Red mud and blast-furnace slag showed the broadest applicability across both pollutant classes, although no unchanged formulation was validated for both. Under favorable conditions, waste-derived sorbents can achieve pollutant-removal efficiencies approaching 100% in synthetic solutions. However, their performance generally decreases in real wastewater and under continuous or cyclic operating conditions, with reported efficiency losses reaching approximately 25 percentage points. Deployment and machine-learning-assisted selection require application-matched processing, real-water and static/dynamic validation, and standardized reporting of separation, regeneration, cyclic stability, mass loss, secondary leaching, and spent-material fate.