How much sodium hydroxide would it take to dissolve one tonne of bauxite?
Bauxite contains usually 45 - 60 % Al2O3. To get an order of magnitude, one ton bauxite contains about 500 kg Al2O3, or about 5000 mole Al2O3. If 2 NaOH are needed to dissolve 1 Al2O3, it means that a minimum of 10'000 mol NaOH is needed to dissolve Al2O3, which weighs 400 kg. But more NaOH is necessary, because the bauxite contains also some silica, which is also dissolved in NaOH. So the amount of NaOH must be higher than 400 kg.