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Upgrading ilmenite into a high-grade synthetic rutile

  • Review of Extraction & Processing
  • 1994 Review of Extraction & Processing
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Abstract

Titanium, the ninth most abundant element, occurs mainly in minable form as ilmenite (95%) and rutile (5%) minerals. The current world consumption of these minerals is used mainly to produce titanium dioxide pigments, with the balance in welding rod flux and titanium metal. Ilmenite is currently being mined in annual quantities eight times larger than rutile. In the past 35 years, an increasing percentage of the pigments have been produced via the chloride method, which requires rutile. This has caused the need to produce a synthetic rutile of more than 90% TiO2 content and large amounts of an 85% TiO2 slag from ilmenite. The direct chlorination of 61% TiO2 ilmenite is being done on a large scale in the United States.

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  1. Key Metals and Minerals Engineering Corporation, Texas City, Texas

    Thomas S. Mackey Ph.D. (president, member of TMS)

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  1. Thomas S. Mackey Ph.D.
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Editor’s Note

Thomas S. Mackey died unexpectedly on February 25. A notice appears in this issue’s TMS News. JOM’s staff expresses its condolences to Dr. Mackey’s family and colleagues.

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Mackey, T.S. Upgrading ilmenite into a high-grade synthetic rutile. JOM 46, 59–64 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03220676

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