Recovery of titanium from the leach liquors of titaniferous magnetites by solvent extraction Part 3. Continuous mini-plant trials

摘要

The recovery of titanium from the sulphuricacid leach of a titaniferous magnetite ore by solventextraction has been investigated in two mini-plantcampaigns. The leach liquor contained approximately5 g 1-1 titanium, 1 g 1-1 vanadium, and 55 g 1-1 ironin 75 g 1-1 sulphuric acid. The objective was toachieve the maximum possible titanium recovery withmaximum rejection of iron and vanadium. The organicphase comprised 10 vol.% tri-n-octylphosphine oxide(TOPO) in an aliphatic diluent. Stripping was effectedusing sulphuric acid. The first continuouscounter-current mixer-settler mini-plant employedmixers of 100 ml capacity and was operated for 180h.A larger mini-plant of 500 ml mixer capacity wassubsequently commissioned and operated for 102h. Thedegree of titanium extraction varied between 76 and88%. Vanadium co-extraction was negligible (less than1%), while the iron concentration in the loaded stripliquor was reduced to less than 2 g 1-1. Approximately60% of titanium loaded onto the organic phase wasstripped, while 97% of the iron and 76% of the vanadium were stripped.