RE: Commercial Implications for a High Purity Anatase Ore22 Aug 2024 08:36
Confirmation in today’s RNS is the impurity make up and how low they are:
“ Published anatase compositions from a variety of mineral deposits globally show a broad range of variations in contained impurity elements. Anatase ores are most commonly derived from the weathering of carbonatites (igneous rocks containing >50% carbonate minerals); such ores commonly have significant impurity levels of radionuclides, alkaline earth metals, rare earth metals, phosphates, niobium and silica, which make then unsuitable for TiO2 pigment manufacture. However, high purity, high TiO2 anatase ores can make very desirable TiO2 feedstocks but are far less common.
Microprobe data from testing completed at CSIRO on the Pitfield weathered zone samples show that the anatase present has very high TiO2 contents (up to 98.5% TiO2), with variable but minor amounts of iron, silica, alumina and vanadium, and importantly negligible radionuclides, niobium, chromium, phosphorous or other potentially deleterious elements.
The Pitfield anatase samples show the amount of variability for the following impurities for TiO2 contents ranging between 85% -98.5% TiO2 :
· Al2O3 - 0.03 to 2.89%
· FeO - 0.865 to 4.65%
· SiO2 - 1.48 to 8.67%
· V2O3 - 0.07 to 0.99”