Process Mineralogy Study on a Weathered Clay Type Titanium Ore Deposit

In order to comprehensively recover and utilize the valuable metals in the weathered elluvium-deluvial type titanium ore, and to discuss the recyclability of valuable elements such as titanium, the ore characteristics of a weathered clay type titanium ore in China were systematically studied by traditional process mineralogy. In addition, the factors affecting the beneficiation process were analyzed and the feasible experiment flow craft was put forward. The results show that the TiO₂ grade of the ore is 4.5%, and the main titanium-bearing minerals are ilmenite, leucoxene, and vanadium titanomagnetite, which are the key target minerals for recovery. The ore contains nearly 80% mud. Ilmenite is mostly monomer, and some of it is changed into leucoxene by oxidation, with both being covered or associated with clay minerals. Vanadium titanomagnetite is a secondary recovered mineral, which contains partly ilmenite flakes separated by solid solution. The titanium in ores is seriously dispersed, the theoretical recovery of titanium separated by physical mineral processing in raw ores is about 48%, and the theoretical recovery of iron is only about 4%. Based on the characteristics of ores and the results of process mineralogy research, the ore dressing test can adopt the combined process of "scrubbing and desliming - gravity separation - magnetic separation". Strong agitation desliming was used to eliminate the "bonding effect" before gravity separation, followed by gravity separation before tail-throwing, and then magnetic separation. After that, strong magnetic separation and shaker selection could be used to further improve the concentrate grade. This study provided a guide for mineral processing to recover the valuable metals from the deposit.