Obtaining TiO2 and Fe2O3 from Ilmenite via Alkaline Fusion Method

Tin mining business in Malaysia produce many types of by product such as xenotime, monazite, zircon and ilmenite. Ilmenite is one of the crucial materials that helps the growth of economy in Malaysia. Instead of that, ilmenite becomes an important material in the process of oxygen carrier where it shows a better compare to the other such as olivine, hematite, biotite and cuprite. Incredible mechanical resistance and good thermal properties are playing an important factor for the materials that been used for oxygen carrier and ilmenite is the most suitable material for oxygen carrier process. Instead of its suitable properties, ilmenite also one of the lowest price materials among natural minerals sources. Ilmenite composition can provide titanium dioxide (TiO2) which can be used in many industries such as painting and iron oxide (Fe2O3 or Fe3O4) for catalytic and magnetic industries. TiO2 can be found in three phases which are anatase, rutile and brookite. In order to obtain TiO2, dissolution – precipitation mechanism where titanium arranges into different crystal structure depending on the reactant chemistry. These phase formations were obtained by using hydrothermal treatment at elevated temperatures with the appropriate reactants. The transition temperature and the mechanism of the structural transformation also can be largely influenced the iron oxide phase. Therefor in this study, extractive metallurgy method was used in order to obtain separate TiO2 and Fe2O3.