Thermogravimetry studies on ilmenite nitridation

Abstract

The present study is based on the possibility of beneficiation of Indian-ilmenite by carbonitrothermic process. The investigations were carried out in two parts. In the first part, thermogravimetric-differential thermogravimetric (TG-DTG) experiments were conducted using cold pressed pellets of blended mixtures TiO2-C and FeTiO3-C. The TG experiments were carried out up to 1500 °C at the rate of 10 °C/min under flowing nitrogen gas. The formations of TiN in case of TiO2-C mixture and TiN along with Fe in case of FeTiO3-C mixture were observed. In the second part, the experiments were conducted using similar pellets, prepared under identical conditions, in a resistance heating furnace at 1500 °C. By simple operations of crushing and sieving, the products obtained from the ilmenite-carbon mixture were separated into a fraction enriched in titanium and a fraction depleted in titanium.

Keywords

• ilmenite
• beneficiation
• TiO2
• thermal analysis