Production of Mineral Concentrates

A second very important source of titanium is the titaniferous slag produced by pyrometallurgical processing of ilmenite-containing iron ores, titanomagnetites and titanohematites. This slag can contain up to 95% TiO. The biggest producers of this type of titanium material are South Africa and Canada. 

Total world production of titanium raw materials in the year 2000 are reported [18.3] in Table 18.1. 

The demand for TiO is much greater than the annual rutile production from mining, so synthetic TiO is produced in a large scale from ihnenite and titaniferous slag. 

The final production of TiOj for pigments is carried out by two different methods. In the sulfate process (the older method) the raw titanium oxide is treated with concentrated sulfuric acid at about 200°C. Relatively pure titanium hydroxide is predpi-tated from the sulfate solution by hydrolysis. In a more modem method the raw titanium oxide (the slag) is chlorinated. The TiCl formed is separated from other chlorides by distillation. The TiCl is burnt at 900-1400°C to form a very pure TiOj pigment. In 2000, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the USA were the leading produdng countries of TiOj pigment. 

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For niobium production very big quantities of pyrochlore are extracted in Brazil and Canada. The world production of mineral concentrates (pyrochlore) was 25 600 tonnes in 2001 (counted as niobium) of which 22 000 tonnes (86%) were produced in Brazil and 3180 tonnes (12%) in Canada [22.1]. 

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