The Method in Which Titanium Is Mined

Dredging

• In this method, a dredge floats on a 15- to 20-acre man-made pond. The land is carefully cleared beforehand, and topsoil is kept to repair the mining area. The dredge sucks up the sands through an electrically powered pipe. The dredger transfers water and titanium ore to a floating wet mill where vibrating screens filter out plants and spinning centrifuges separate the heavy minerals from the lighter sand particles. The cleaned sand is pumped out to fill in the mined area again.

Auxiliary Mining

• Areas with higher-grade ore, or where the dredging method doesn't work, may use a variety of equipment such as bulldozers, diggers, bucket-wheel excavators and self-loading scrapers. These various forms of earth-moving equipment pile up the mineral sands, load it in trucks and take it to a suction dredger that processes it in the same way as in the dredging method.

Environmental Care

• According to Australian government information on titanium mining, refilling the mine site with sand is part of mining companies' environmental rehabilitation of the area. The sand pumped out by dredgers is shaped afterwards to follow the original contours of the land. The original topsoil is replaced and the area is replanted with local grasses and other vegetation. The area is monitored to ensure that the land returns to its natural state, which in the case of Australian mines, is often farmland or bush. Public consultations take place before mining companies are allowed to commence mining.

Processing

• The mineral ore is sent to mills where the individual minerals are separated according to their electrical and magnetic properties by heating at high temperatures using electrostatic plate and high-intensity magnetic separators. White titanium dioxide pigment, used in paints, cosmetics and textiles, is made by a chlorination process. Rutile is used to make titanium metal used in aircraft manufacture, automobiles and surgical implants.