RE: Commerciality11 Dec 2023 11:43
the smelter process is only required if there is low grade ore and high levels of contamination. we most very likely won't require use of a smelter to get to paint additive grade tio2 which sells for $2000/t
"patenting activity related to titanium dioxide production from ilmenite is rapidly increasing.
between 2002 and 2022, there have been 459 patent families that describe the production of
titanium dioxide from ilmenite, and this number is growing rapidly. the majority of these patents
describe pre-treatment processes, such as using smelting and magnetic separation to increase
titanium concentration in low-grade ores, leading to titanium concentrates or ****s. other patents
describe processes to obtain titanium dioxide, either by a direct hydrometallurgical process or
through two industrially exploited processes, the sulfate process and the chloride process.
acid leaching might be used either as a pre-treatment or as part of a hydrometallurgical process
to directly obtain titanium dioxide or synthetic rutile (>90 percent titanium dioxide, tio2). the
sulfate process represents 40 percent of the world’s titanium dioxide production and is protected
in 23 percent of patent families. the chloride process is only mentioned in 8 percent of patent
families, although it provides 60 percent of the worldwide industrial production of titanium
dioxide. given the findings from this patent landscape report, we can expect to see industrial chloride process use progressively decrease within the next few years and an increasing use of direct hydrometallurgical processes, which require fewer steps and are more convenient."
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