The iron mining is one of the most important activities in Brazil, however it can generate 150 million ton of iron mining tailings per year. The sandy tailings, from the iron ore beneficiation process, have high levels of silica in its composition. By reacting with an alkaline base, the silica present in the tailings can be extracted as silicate from the corresponding alkali metal, producing a valuable product. Although many studies have been reported using NaOH to react with silica, there is a lack of studies assessing the influence of time and amount of KOH in this reaction. In this work, two different routes were used to obtain potassium silicate from iron mining tailings, the hydrothermal route and the solid route. For the hydrothermal route, 12 g of iron ore tailings were mixed with 15 g of KOH and 30 g of distilled water. The materials were kept under stirring, and then transferred to a Teflon-coated steel autoclave which statically reacted at 200°C. Different times (4, 6, 8 and 24 hours) and amount of KOH (12, 15 and 18 g) were tested in order to understand the influence of time and KOH concentration in the yield of silicate. After reaction it is expected to obtain liquid potassium silicate. In the solid route, 12, 15 and 18 g of KOH were solubilized in 30 g of distilled water, respectively. After, 12 g of iron ore tailings were added to each mixture and the system was kept under heating and stirring until complete drying. The resulting solid was placed in a muffle at 500 °C for 3 hours. After reaction it is expected to obtain solid potassium silicate. The K2O and SiO2 contents in the resulting materials were quantified by titration. The titration results showed 7.6, 7.9 and 8.8 wt% SiO2 in the solutions after 2, 6 and 8h of reaction, respectively, indicating that these times had the same impact in the dissolution of silica. Although, when performing the reaction for 24h, the greatest dissolution was obtained for the hydrothermal route, ca. 14.7 wt% SiO2. The variation in the amount of KOH did not significantly change the silica content, ca. 14.08, 14.65 and 13.27 wt% SiO2 when using 12, 15 and 18 g of KOH, respectively. For the solid route, it was observed that increasing the amount of KOH, the dissolution of silica was also increased. The final solid had a content of 35.6 wt% SiO2. XRD, TG, SEM and XRF analysis are ongoing in order to understand the transformations in the solid and to quantify the amount of potassium silicate. This work showed the possibility to produce liquid and solid potassium silicate from iron mining tailings at different conditions. When using the hydrothermal route, the time was the most important parameter in the dissolution of silica, whereas 24 h was the best condition. Moreover, among the two routes, solid was the most efficient route.