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| Science & Technology | |
| Scientists have found a way to provide Russia with high-quality titanium raw materials | |
| 2022-12-06 | |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Evgeny Biyatov [RIA Novosti] A new safe method for cleaning titanium raw materials
Although Russia is one of the leaders in the production of metallic titanium and owns 15 percent of its world reserves, concentrates for the industrial production of titanium-containing materials have to be imported due to the poor quality of domestic raw materials. Thus, the largest reserves of titanium ores are concentrated in the Yaregskoye deposit of the Komi Republic (more than 45 percent of Russia's reserves). This type of ores is very common in our country, for example, the Tugan deposit in the Tomsk region. Some concentrates obtained there have a high content of silicon dioxide, which does not allow the raw material to be used in industry. Purification of this compound is an extremely complex and time-consuming procedure, said Alexander Kantaev, Associate Professor of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Department of the TPU School of Nuclear Technology Engineering. A team of scientists from Tomsk Polytechnic University has developed a new efficient way to remove silicon dioxide from a titanium-containing concentrate. According to experts, a by-product of the process is pure silicon dioxide, which is widely used in the chemical industry. "Silicon dioxide has high chemical resistance and a high melting point, over 1600 °C, which requires large energy consumption for its isolation from the concentrate. Our method allows us to obtain demanded products from unsuitable raw materials by relatively simple and safe processing," said the senior lecturer of the Department of Nuclear -fuel cycle of TPU School of Nuclear Technology Andrey Smorokov. The proposed technology will provide the country's industry with high-quality raw materials from the largest Russian deposits, scientists are sure. According to them, this will satisfy Russia's needs for high-quality titanium concentrates for a long time. "The resulting rutile concentrate can be used to produce metallic titanium and alloys based on it, as well as welding electrodes, titanic electrocorundum and other materials in demand. Silicon dioxide is leached in aqueous solutions at temperatures below 100 ° C and atmospheric pressure, which makes it possible to conduct it on typical industrial equipment," Andrey Smorokov stressed. All other methods of removing silicon dioxide are associated with increased danger, the scientists noted. Malfunctions in these procedures can lead to catastrophic consequences for the enterprise and casualties among personnel. "Our silicon leaching scheme excludes the use of volatile compounds at high temperatures and elevated pressures. The industrial implementation proposed by us does not allow technological difficulties typical for other approaches to this problem," said Alexander Kantaev. According to TPU scientists, the developed method makes it possible to remove silicon dioxide from other types of mineral raw materials. At this stage, scientists are finalizing and improving the schemes for the regeneration of the main leaching reagent and preparing a sample of a pilot plant, as well as developing new methods for processing mineral and technogenic raw materials with a high content of silicon dioxide. | |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #2 Fun fact: The titanium used to make the skins of SR-71's was bought from Russia for Lockheed thru CIA shell companies. They needed reliable quality Ti sheet metal, but didn't want the russians to figure out why. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2022-12-06 09:41 |
| #1 Titanium |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2022-12-06 00:48 |