Tom Buck on sat 23 jan 99
On seeing my Ilmenite post I noted that I omitted the word "annually" when
listing the level of shipments of from Australia and Canada to the
USA...that is, 500 million kilograms annually from Ozland, and 200+
million kilograms annually from Canada. Europe gets it much of its
titanium materials from South Africa (a new project underway) and
Australia.
Also, during my research I learned about a trend in the titanium
industry, namely, more ilmenite operations now combine mine, mill, and
smelter. The raw ore (often a "sand") is treated at the mill to
separate/upgrade things, producing a higher-grade ilmenite, a near pure
rutile (way smaller amount than ilmenite) and often a zircon
"concentrate". Rutile and Zircon are exported as such whereas ilmenite
goes to the smelter, and is changed to titanium slag and pig iron.
Of the two routes to pure TiO2 (sulfate & chloride), the chloride
route is becoming dominant since it makes less "garbage". The chloride
process can use either ilmenite or slag as its feed. But the ilmenite must
be of a very specific particle size range. Which is why potters now find a
change in physical make-up of the ilmenite they buy from their dealers:
we are tiny tiny part of the market, so we have no say in this, we must
take what comes and do the best we can.
Tom Buck ) tel: 905-389-2339
& snailmail: 373 East 43rd St. Hamilton ON L8T 3E1 Canada
(westend Lake Ontario, province of Ontario, Canada).
| |
|
