Chemical Engineering December 2014 - 12

ChementatoR
Run-of-mine (ROM) bin
Primary jaw
crusher
Primary benefication circuit
Secondary
cone
crusher
Process
water return
Magnetic
separation
Concentrate
Primary/
secondary
high-pressure
grinding rolls
(HPGR)
Non-magnetic
tailings
Leach residue
Reagent
Acid
regeneration
plant
Tailings storage facility
53% TiO2
product
Salt storage cell
99.9% Fe2O3
product
A new metals-recovery process moves to the pilot scale
S
ignificant improvements to a process
to extract vanadium, titanium
and iron from the Mount Peake Vanadium-Titanium-Iron
Project in the
Northern Territory of Australia will
be tested in a pilot plant now under
construction and nearing completion.
Results of the pilot-plant testing are
expected to be available in the first
quarter of 2015.
The project, 230 km north of Alice
Springs, is wholly owned by TNG
Limited (Perth, Western Australia;
www.tngltd.com.au), and has a total
resource estimate of 160 million tons
with 0.28 wt.% vanadium (V2O5), 5
wt.% titanium (TiO2), and 23 wt.%
iron (Fe2O3).
TNG and local metallurgical company
Mineral Engineering Technical
Services (Perth; www.metsengineer
ing.com) have developed the TIVAN
hydrometallurgical process to extract
the metals from the titanomagnetite
ores that make up most of Australia's
known vanadium deposits. The conventional
pyrometallurgical process,
involving salt roasting followed by
water leaching, can pose environmental
issues and is also capital intensive.
The alternative TIVAN process
(flowsheet) uses the combined process
of acid leaching, solvent extraction
and stripping to selectively recover
the metals. According to TNG, the
concept of employing a hydrometallurgical
route to process the vanadium
titanomagnetite ore is the innovative
part of the flowsheet. The company
says there are no currently operating
process plants that utilize a commercially
viable route of extracting vanadium
through a combination of leaching
and solvent extraction. It says the
benefit of this route is that hematite
and TiO2 are byproducts that can be
sold to enhance the process' economic
viability. The TIVAN process achieves
higher recoveries and higher products
purities: 99.0% V2O5, 99.9% Fe2O3,
and up to 55% TiO2.
Provisional site locations for a
TIVAN refinery in Malaysia are
under review.
12 CHEMICAL ENgINEErINg www.CHEMENgONLINE.COM DECEMBEr 2014
antifreeze materials for applications
in the food industry. In 2012, the group
developed an antifreeze based on a
protein derived from radish sprouts,
which has since been adopted for use
in noodles and over 50 food products
and frozen foods. Now, the collaborators
have developed a new antifreeze material
that has superior properties to the
predecessor, such as the suppression of
ice-crystal formation.
The new antifreeze is based on xylomannan
- a mixture of saccharides
and a fatty acid found in the cell wall
of the edible fungus, velvet shank. The
extracted antifreeze has a molecular
weight of 240,000-310,000 and a
xylose-to-mannose ratio of 0.5. The researchers
showed that the saccharidebased
antifreeze is more stable than
the protein-based antifreeze at high
processing temperatures and over a
wide pH range, thus making it suitable
for a wider range of applications. They
also confirmed that frying at more than
160°C did not influence the quality of
fried foods.
Since October, Kaneka has been
sending samples to potential users for
(Continues on p. 14)
Precipitation of V2O5
Concentrate
Leach
feed
Grinding mill
Non-magnetic
tailings
Magnetic
separation
Filter
Acid
Atmospheric
leach
Vanadium solvent extraction (SX)
Stripped organic
V loaded organic
Pregnant
liquor
Vanadium
strip
Filter
Loaded
strip
liquor
Strip
liquor
V2O5
product
Calcining,
flake production and packaging
Filter
Cake
http://www.tngltd.com.au http://www.metsengineer http://www.ing.com http://www.CHEMENgONLINE.COM
Chemical Engineering December 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering December 2014
