Abstract: Large amounts of bauxite resources are consumed annually in China, which produces many tailings. Furthermore, the accumulation of these tailings has caused series environmental problems and drawn more attention. Bauxite tailings contain kaolinite, illite, pyrophyllite and other layered silicate minerals, which have good porous properties for wastewater treatment. In order to solve the environmental problems of bauxite tailings and facilitate the comprehensive utilization of these resources, high temperature roasting modification was applied to enhance the adsorption performance of Cu²⁺ and Zn²⁺. The results indicated that the best adsorption results with saturated adsorption capacity of 2.837 mg/g and 1.630 mg/g for Cu²⁺ and Zn²⁺ could be achieved when the tailing was roasted at 800 ℃ for 2 h. Based on these results, it is found that heavy metal adsorption ability of bauxite tailings could be improved by high temperature modification, which make it possible to realize the comprehensive utilization of the tailings.