Ludy Margarita Montero, Carlos Augusto Queiroz, Natasha Suguihiro, Rodrigo Souza, Rogério Navarro, Guillermo Solorzáno, Eduardo Brocchi
Titanium is a high value metal, both as regards the production of special steels as well as obtaining
of TiO2 for white pigment industry. In this context, processes carried out in order to chemically process
concentrates containing ilmenite (FeTiO3) have become increasingly important. Therefore,
reducing chlorination reactions at high temperatures are an interesting processing route, given the
possible formation of TiCl4 in gaseous form. This, in a further step could be transformed in its respective
metal through the well-known Kroll Process or oxidized in order to produce its oxide. Alternatively,
in the absence of the agent, the process becomes selective, favoring the formation of
iron chlorides. Given this outlook, the purpose of the present work is to study the direct chlorination
of ilmenite concentrate, aiming to selective extract iron as a volatile chloride varying the flow rate
of Cl2 (0.16 – 0.64 L.min-1) and the reaction temperature (873 – 1273 K). The feasibility process
was investigated by prior thermodynamic modeling, and the kinetic behavior assessed via mass variation
measures as a function of time. Both the starting materials as well as reaction products were
characterized by means of XRD, XRF and SEM/EDS. The results suggest, in agreement with the
thermodynamic predictions, that the process allows the selective formation of iron chlorides while
the titanium content in the concentrate remains unreacted concentrating it in the solid material.
From the kinetics perspective, a more relevant weight loss was observed at 1273 K, in fact, suggesting
a significant amount of volatile material production. Additionally, for higher flow rates of chlorine
in the range between 0.16 and 0.32 L/min resulted in progressively higher reaction rates, indicating
for this range a remarkable influence of diffusion factors on the kinetics of the process.
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