Study On Strengthening The Solid-state Reduction Of Ilmenite Ore By Microwave Heating

A vast amount of titanium resources is reserved in Panxi area of China. It is of great significance for the development of titanium industry in China, to achieve the comprehensive utilization of ilmenite ore. Due to the fact that ilmenite ore is difficult to be reduced, microwave heating was adopted to strengthen the direct reduction and separation of prereduced pellets. The following conclusions were obtained.The emergence of many pores and cracks inside the pellets during the microwave heating reduction process is beneficial to the diffusion of reduction gas and microwave heating is capable of decreasing the reduction temperature, shortening the reduction time and accelerating the reduction rate. Pellets does not exist "cold center" problem when reduced by microwave heating. Both the edge and center of pellets were reduced. Coarser metallic iron particles produced by microwave heating, which decreased generation of low titanium oxide and formation of M3O5(M is the Fe, Ti, Mg, Mn, etc.) type continuous solid solution. Enrichment phenomenon of Mg was lighter. Boundaries between iron phase and solid solution phase containing titanium formed obviously.Microwave heating is good for separation of ilmenite pellets. Compared with conventional heating that little sporadic small iron grain was produced, iron grains grew to50μm which had already distributed into banding and separation degree of titanium and iron increased by microwave heating under endpoint temperature1150℃. In comparison with the conventional heating, as both of the metallization rate of ilmenite pellets were87%, iron ore concentrate grade, iron recovery and TiO2grade in rich titanium product were improved to86.61%,85.12%,64.89%from73.33%,65.79%,55.52%respectively when microwave heating was adopted. TiO2grade in rich titanium product improved to70.34%after secondary separation.48figures,16tables,89references.