Kinetics of the leaching of TiO2 from Ti-bearing blast furnace slag

Ti-bearing blast furnace slag is a valuable secondary resource containing about 24 percent of TiO2. In this paper a process of leaching Ti-bearing blast furnace slag with sulfuric acid to recover TiO2, and the kinetics of that reaction, are described. Under laboratory conditions the rate is controlled by a chemical reaction. The leaching reaction is in accord with a shrinking unreacted-core model. The apparent reaction order of the leaching reaction was 1.222 and the apparent activation energy was 87.01 kJ/mol. The model fits the observed data well until 90% of the TiO2 has be leached from the particles. The model disagrees with observations during later periods of the reaction because the solution becomes supersaturated with Ti ions, which precipitate as H2TiO4. The assumptions of constant reactant concentration and that there is no effect from the product layer on diffusion, also cause the model to deviate from the actual values.