Vanadium-titanium magnetite is a kind of symbiotic magnetic iron ore mainly containing iron, titanium and vanadium. Most of the vanadium and iron minerals are isomorphous in the magnetite. This type of mineral exists in huge amounts in the world, with large deposits distributed on six continents in the world. 88% of the world’s vanadium production is extracted from vanadium titanium magnetite. This article first summarizes the vanadium extraction technology developed in my country, and then introduces the mature process of extracting vanadium from vanadium titanium magnetite and iron ore abroad.
The commonly used method to recover vanadium from vanadium-titanium magnetite is to smelt the vanadium-titanium magnetite in a blast furnace or electric furnace to produce vanadium-containing pig iron, and then selectively oxidize the molten iron to oxidize the vanadium and then enter the slag to obtain a high vanadium content. The slag is used as the raw material for vanadium extraction in the next step.
There are currently three methods for treating vanadium-containing molten iron:
1. Blowing vanadium slag method: This method blows molten pig iron in a converter or other furnace to obtain vanadium slag and semi-steel containing V2O512~16%. The requirement for blowing is to “remove vanadium and preserve carbon”. This method is the main method for producing vanadium from vanadium-titanium alloy magnetite, which is more economical than extracting vanadium directly from ore. Currently 66% of the world’s vanadium production is produced using this method.
2. Vanadium-containing steel slag method: This method is to directly blow vanadium-containing molten iron into steel. Vanadium enters the slag as an impurity, and steel slag is used as the raw material for vanadium extraction. However, the calcium oxide content in this kind of steel slag is as high as 45~60%, making it difficult to extract vanadium. This method not only eliminates the need for blowing slag equipment and saves investment, but also recovers the pig iron lost during blowing vanadium slag. It is a new generation method of extracting vanadium.
3. Sodium slag method: This method is to add sodium carbonate directly to the molten iron containing vanadium, so that the vanadium in the molten iron will generate sodium vanadate, and at the same time, the sulfur and phosphorus in the molten iron will be removed. This kind of slag can be directly immersed in water without roasting to extract vanadium pentoxide. The semi-steel obtained contains very low sulfur and phosphorus, and can be made using slag-free or slag-less methods.
Link to this article：Process for extracting vanadium from vanadium-titanium magnetite
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