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 CS 2 to selectively sulfurize to FeS, which is wet-chemically removed. 2) The residual oxide is again exposed to CS 2 to form TiS 2 . 3) TiS 2 is electrochemically reduced to metallic Ti using molten CaCl 2 -CaS as an application of OS process. TiFeO 3 was exposed to Ar-CS 2 mixed gas flow at 1173 K to form the mixture of FeS+TiO 2 . FeS was easily separated by immersing in H 2 SO 4 solution at 313 K. After recovery of TiO 2 , it was converted completely to TiS 2 by the second sulfurization with CS 2 . TiS 2 could be reduced to Ti powder by calciothermic reduction and simulteneous electrolysis in a CaS-CaCl 2 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 CaCl 2 .