Rutile: How to process this titanium ore?

Rutile is the first “titanium” to be recognized and discovered. Although its reserves are relatively small, it has the most stable performance among titanium ores and a grade far higher than that of ilmenite from titanium ores. Therefore, it is the preferred source of titanium ores.

The R-type titanium dioxide required in industries such as machinery, chemical engineering, and automobiles is rutile. Australia, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Kenya have a strong demand for this mineral. Today, let’s discuss rutile and its processing methods.

What is Rutile?

Rutile is an important titanium oxide mineral. It exists as a by-mineral in igneous rocks, eclogite, schist, gneiss, pegmatite and other rocks, and also in the form of needle-like crystals in quartz, hematite, zircon and other minerals.

The Mineral Properties of Rutile

• The meaning of rutile: Rutile originates from the Latin word “rutilis”, meaning “red” or “glowing”.
• Rutile formula: titanium 2
• Rutile colors: reddish-brown, red, light yellow, light blue, purple, rarely grass green or black
• Rutile crystal: Tetragonal crystal system, usually in the form of complete tetragonal columnar or acicular crystals
• Rutile hardness: 6
• Rutile stripes: light brown to light yellow
• Specific gravity/density: 4.2-4.3 g/cm ³. If it contains iron, niobium or tantalum, it can reach over 5.5 g/cm ³
• Transparency: From transparent to opaque
• Luster: Semi-golden to metallic luster
• Rutile properties: stable, heat-resistant, low-temperature resistant, and corrosion-resistant

The Mining and Processing of Rutile

The popular mining areas of rutile are located in Gbangbama and Rotifunk in Sierra Leone, Binnental and Campolungo in Sweden, Georgia in the United States, Ilmen Mountain in Russia, and New South Wales and Queensland in Australia.

Rutile is mined from hard rocks and heavy mineral sands. The latter is more economical. This blog will explore the mechanical processing methods of rutile after it is mined from two sources.

Rutile in Hard Rock and Heavy Mineral Sand

Process Rutile from Hard Rocks

The mineral under study is the eclogite-type primary rutile ore. Its mineral properties are as follows:

• The raw ore has a fine particle size, containing 14.95% TFE and 25.14% Tio.
• The main industrial minerals are rutile and ilmenite, followed by ilmenite, hematite and limonite.
• Gangue minerals include garnet, pyroxene, Muscovite, amphibole, quartz and apatite.
• Garnet is an important factor influencing the grade and recovery rate of rutile concentrate.

Through multiple beneficiation tests, Cronus found that combined beneficiation had the best recovery effect on rutile. Therefore, processing equipment includes jaw crushers, impact crushers, vibrating screens, magnetic separators, vibrating tables, flotation machines, etc.

Broken

The shape of natural rutile ore is relatively large, so a jaw crusher must be used for primary crushing. At this point, a vibrating feeder is also needed to evenly, continuously and quantitatively feed the materials into the jaw crusher.

Grinding

The versatility of rutile powder in the production of high-grade titanium dioxide and the refining of titanium metal makes it crucial to choose the right grinding machine. The cost-effective option is the Raymond mill, while the ultrafine mill or vertical roller mill offers the finest grinding options with adjustable fineness ranging from 80 to 600 mesh.

Magnetic separation

Rutile is non-magnetic. Garnet and titanite are magnetic, while amphibole and epidote are weakly magnetic. Therefore, weak magnetic separation – strong magnetic separation is adopted. Then garnet and ilmenite will be rich in strong magnetic concentrate, and they will be separated from rutile and pyroxene.

Gravity separation

Discard low-density minerals or fine mud to initially enrich rutile. Due to the significant density difference between rutile minerals and apatite, but the small density difference between rutile and garnet, a vibrating table can effectively separate rutile and apatite, although the separation of rutile and garnet is challenging.

Flotation separation

Foam flotation can separate fine-grained rutile and remove unwanted deposits, such as sulfides. Salicylhydroxamic acid or butyl ether alcohol is used as a collector to recover rutile from copper-molybdenum tailings. The grade and recovery rate of rutile have been enhanced through a two-coarse, one-sweep and four-selection closed-circuit process.

Rutile Processing Results

Rutile concentrate containing 90% TiO2 and garnet and pyroxene concentrates with a purity of 88% were obtained. The recovery rates of the three minerals are all above 67%.

Process Rutile Heavy Mineral Sand

Take the rutile processing plant in Sierra Leone as an example. Raw ore exists in beach sand and is mainly related to ilmenite, zircon, rutile and monazite.

The beneficiation steps of rutile are as follows:

1. Mud removalUse a drum screen to remove the mucus and discard most of it.
2. Gravity separationGravity separation is carried out using a vibrating table to separate heavy minerals (such as rutile and cassiterite) from a small amount of light minerals (such as quartzite or fine mud).
3. Magnetic separationBoth dry and wet magnetic separation are possible. The weak magnetic separator separates magnetic products such as magnetite and ilmenite from the coarse concentrate separated by gravity. The magnetic impurities of ilmenite and monazite were separated by strong magnetic separation to obtain rutile concentrate.

Rutile concentrate is a white powder used in the production of bright white titanium dioxide pigments for items such as paints, plastics, paper and toothpaste. It is also used in the production of titanium metal (sponge titanium) and refractory ceramics.