Mining titanium

Iron mines Lead mines Molybdenum mines Nickel mines Silver mines Titanium mines Zinc mines Zirconium mines Coal mines Fluorspar mines Granite mines Limestone mines... 

The 1990s reduction process was based on work started in the early 1930s. A magnesium vacuum reduction process was developed for reduction of titanium tetrachloride to metal. Based on this process, the U.S. Bureau of Mines (BOM) initiated a program in 1940 to develop commercial production. Some years later, the BOM pubHcized its work on titanium and made samples available to the industrial community. By 1948, the BOM produced batch sizes of 104 kg. In the same year, Du Pont aimounced commercial availabiHty of titanium, thus beginning the modem titanium metals industry (1). 

Fig. 1. Typical processes and products of a titanium beach-sand mining and beneficiating operation (4).

Corrosion Resistance. Titanium is immune to corrosion in all naturally occurring environments. It does not corrode in air, even if polluted or moist with ocean spray. It does not corrode in soil and even the deep salt-mine-type environments where nuclear waste might be buried. It does not corrode in any naturally occurring water and most industrial wastewater streams. For these reasons, titanium has been termed the metal for the earth, and 20—30% of consumption is used in corrosion-resistance appHcations (see Corrosion and corrosion inhibitors). 

Titanium raw-material utilization can be broken down as illustrated in Figure 9. About 4% of the titanium mined is used as metal, 94% is used as pigment-grade Ti02, and 2% as ore-grade mtile for fluxes and ceramics. In 1995, the estimated U.S. Ti02 pigment production was valued at 2.6 biUion and was produced by five companies at 11 plants in nine states. About 47% was used in paint, 18% in plastics, 24% in paper, and 18% in other misceUaneous appHcations (56). 

Titanium A.nnualReview-1994, Mineral Industry Surveys, U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, Washington, D.C., 1995. 

J. A. Slatnick and co- Market Economy Countries, IC 9413, Bureau of Mines Information Circular, Washington,... 

J. L. Henry and co-workers. Bureau of Mines Development of Titanium Production Technology, Bulletin 690, Washington, D.C., 1984. 

Most foreiga vanadium is obtained as a coproduct of iron and titanium. South Africa, Norway, and Finland are suppHers. Chile produces slag from an iron operation. AustraUa s first vanadium operation started produciag fused pentoxide flake from a vanadium mine ia 1980. Russia and the People s Repubhc of china produce slag and pentoxide from iron—titanium ores. 

Mining and metallurgical Zinc roaster Zinc smelter Copper roaster Copper reverberatory furnace Copper converter Aluminum-Hall process Aluminum-Soderberg process Ilmenite dryer Titanium dioxide process Molybdenum roaster Ore beneficiation... 

The two most important minerals of titanium are ilmenite (FeTi03) and rutile (Ti02). The former is a black sandy material mined in Canada, the USA, Australia, Scandinavia and Malaysia, while the latter is mined principally in Australia. Zirconium s main minerals are zircon (ZrSi04)... 

C04-0111. The element titanium is commonly found as the ore ilmenite, F eTi03. Much of the world reserves of titanium is found in Canada. At a particular mine, a sample of earth was found to contain 15% ilmenite by mass. What mass of pure titanium metal can be isolated from 1.00 x 10 metric tons of earth, if the extraction process is 95% efficient ... 

T. Hirai and I. Komasawa, Separation of Europium from Sm, Eu, Gd Mixture by Photoreductive Stripping in Solvent Extraction Process, Industrial Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol. 34, p. 237,1995. Titanium, MCP-18, Bureau of Mines, United States Department of Interior, August 1978. 

M. M. Wong, R. E. Campbell, D. C. Fleck and D. H. Baker Jr., Electrolytic Methods of Preparing Cell Feed for Electrorefining Titanium, U. S. Bureau of Mines, Rept. Invst. No. 6161,1963. 

Society, of course, is in need of metals such as titanium to produce jet engines for aircraft, as much as it needs petroleum products as a source of fuel for their running. Like oil, mineral deposits do not regenerate themselves when they are exhausted. While there exists no threat from any immediate scarcity of mineral sources, if these are to be recovered with minimum or practically no impact on the environment, then it is required that society pays more for these products in order to meet the additional costs incurred when implementing an environmentally benign mining operation. 

Since the hybridization and structure of the nitrile group resemble those of alkynes, titanium carbene complexes react with nitriles in a similar fashion. Titanocene-methylidene generated from titanacyclobutane or dimethyltitanocene reacts with two equivalents of a nitrile to form a 1,3-diazatitanacyclohexadiene 81. Hydrolysis of 81 affords p-ketoena-mines 82 or 4-amino-l-azadienes 83 (Scheme 14.35) [65,78]. The formation of the azati-tanacyclobutene by the reaction of methylidene/zinc halide complex with benzonitrile has also been studied [44]. 

Several large deposits of fine mineral sands containing mtile, ilmenite and zircon exist in Australia (Wimmera mine) and in the Soviet Union. The mtile, ilmenite and zircon cannot be preconcentrated. In most cases, flotation was used which involved bulk flotation followed by titanium-zircon separation. Over the years, several effective processes have been developed for bulk flotation followed by titanium-zirconium separation. The type of... 

Titanium anodes, 15 591 Titanium aryloxides, 25 78 Titanium beach-sand mining, 24 847 Titanium borides, 25 5-6 physical properties of, 25 7 Titanium bromide... 

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