US 4,046,853 AGranted

Production of titanium tetrachloride

AssigneeLaporte Industries Limited

InventorMichael Robinson

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

The simultaneous chlorination of the iron and titanium values in an iron containing titaniferous ore such as ilmenite is advantageously conducted to convert the iron values to ferrous chloride but the resulting gaseous effluent is difficult to process to recover the titanium tetrachloride. The iron values in the effluent are partially oxidized according to the equation 3FeCl.sub.2 + 3/4O.sub.2 .fwdarw. 1/2Fe.sub.2 O.sub.3 + 2FeCl.sub.3 thereby reducing the vapor partial pressure of the ferrous chloride while maintaining the presence of some ferrous chloride to scavenge any chlorine emitted from the chlorination stage. The residual gaseous iron chlorides are condensed and chlorine-free titanium tetrachloride may be recovered from the remaining gases. If chlorine-free titanium tetrachloride is not required the mixture of gases resulting from the partial oxidation are reduced in temperature of from 500.degree. C to 800.degree. C and above the dewpoint of the residual ferrous chloride which ferrous chloride may be oxidized directly in the gas phase. This embodiment of the process simplifies the problem of chlorine recovery and is particularly suitable for use in a cyclic process involving chlorine recycle.

Claims15

Dependent claims

A process for the production of titanium tetrachloride from an iron-containing titaniferous ore, which comprises;

chlorinating said ore in a fluidized bed of a mixture of the ground ore and a carbonaceous material to obtain an effluent gas which comprises a mixture of titanium tetrachloride and iron chlorides in the vapor state, more than 50 percent of said iron chlorides being ferrous chloride;
oxidizing from 65 to 95 percent of the ferrous chloride in said effluent gas by mixing with the effluent gas a proportion of oxygen sufficient to oxidize any carbon blow-over from the fluidized bed and from 65 to 95 percent of the ferrous chloride in said effluent gas while maintaining the temperature of the effluent gas-oxygen mixture above the dew point of the ferrous chloride but below about 1075.degree. C., whereby the oxidized effluent gas contains ferric oxide and ferric chloride as the predominant iron chloride component;
moving the mixture of gases resulting from oxidizing, in a stream having a velocity sufficient to entrain particles of the ferric oxide formed, to a particle separation zone;
separating ferric oxide and any residual ferrous chloride and ferric chloride from the moved mixture of gases to obtain a residual gas containing titanium tetrachloride vapor;
and
condensing said titanium tetrachloride vapor from said residual gas.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.