Titanium Production via Titanium Sulfide

Abstract

A new metallurgical process via titanium sulfide from ilmenite is proposed and experimentally approved: It consists of several stages; 1) The ilmenite ore is exposed to gaseous CS2 to selectively sulfurize to FeS, which is wet-chemically removed. 2) The residual oxide is again exposed to CS2 to form TiS2. 3) TiS2 is electrochemically reduced to metallic Ti using molten CaCl2-CaS as an application of OS process. TiFeO3 was exposed to Ar-CS2 mixed gas flow at 1173 K to form the mixture of FeS+TiO2. FeS was easily separated by immersing in H2SO4 solution at 313 K. After recovery of TiO2, it was converted completely to TiS2 by the second sulfurization with CS2. TiS2 could be reduced to Ti powder by calciothermic reduction and simulteneous electrolysis in a CaS-CaCl2 melt for about 6 hours at 1173 K and 3.0 V. The impurity decreased to a low level such as 0.021 mass%S due to very small solubility of S in a-Ti. However, 1.06 mass%O remained because of wide solubility of oxygen in a-Ti and water contamination in initial CaCl2.