Characterisation of titanium-rich heavy mineral concentrates from the Brahmaputra River basin,Bangladesh

Abstract

The Brahmaputra River of Bangladesh is a potential source of significant amounts of heavy mineral (HM) sand concentrates. This study provides the first ever reported characterisation data for a bulk titanium-rich HM sand sample sourced from the river system. The prepared concentrate contained ∼10–15 wt-% HMs with the remaining 85–90 wt-% of the sample comprising silicate and aluminosilicates. Modal analysis for the Fe- and Ti-rich components indicated that the HM concentrate contained 4·7% primary ilmenite, 4·4% Fe-oxide (magnetite), 0·91% titanomagnetite, 0·94% titanite and 0·08% rutile. Quantitative analysis of the ilmenite component showed the TiO₂ content of the ilmenite was within the range 40–52 wt-%TiO₂ (average ∼48 wt-%TiO₂) with major impurities including MnO (1·83 wt-%) and MgO (0·20 wt-%) and minor impurities being Al₂O₃ (0·02 wt-%), Cr₂O₃ (0·03 wt-%), SiO₂ (0·08 wt-%) and V₂O₅ (0·08 wt-%). Based on the composition of ilmenite and current specifications regarding ilmenite compositional purity, the most likely method for processing would be via the sulphate route.

Keywords

Heavy mineral sands Ilmenite Brahmaputra River

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