In-flight thermal plasma processing of prereduced ilmenite to produce titania rich slag

Abstract

Synthetic rutile is produced all over the world by processing ilmenite through conventional chloride and sulphate routes. In both of these processes, considerable amounts of iron chloride/sulphate and spent acids are produced as by-products which are environmental pollutants. Metallic iron is produced as a by-product of carbothermic smelting of ilmenite and enriching titania content of slag to 75 to 85%. Processing of titania rich slag reduces the generation of pollutants considerably. In this paper, an alternate method of preparing titania rich slag by in-flight thermal plasma processing of prereduced ilmenite is presented. It has been possible to prepare 76% TiO2-containing slag with an energy consumption of 1.2 kWh/kg at a feed rate of 16.5 kg/h.