This mineral is the source of the most sought-after metal of the 21st century. Without it, there would be no modern aircraft engine, airplanes, and helicopters, and ships would not be able to fly into space.
Ilmenite is the name of the mineral discovered in the early 19th century by the outstanding German scientist Alexander von Humboldt. In 1829 Humboldt was invited to Russia by the Minister of Finance Yegor Kankrin in order to study, explore and analyze the deposits of the Urals, when Emperor Nicholas I set the latter the task of converting the Russian currency to a more reliable platinum or silver base. As a result of Humboldt's expedition, many minerals, previously unknown to science, were discovered. Some of them were passed to the Museum of the Mining Cadet Corps (now St. Petersburg Mining University) for study. Among them was ilmenite, named after the Ilmensky mountains, where it was first discovered
Initially, it was mistaken for the already known iron-containing mineral hematite. But one of the members of the expedition, Gustav Rose, noticed that although both gems looked very similar, ilmenite was not uniformly shiny and had a lower iron content. Later, when it was discovered that titanium was present in the stone, the novelty of this discovery was beyond doubt. The unusually shaped crystals of ilmenite resembling the petals of a flower were delivered to Saint Petersburg under the name of "titanium roses. Such samples of the stone have always been regarded as a rarity and were immediately included in private collections. Usually, the mineral came in the form of an unremarkable, dense grained mass. Among the first finds in the Urals, there were specimens that weighed over 50 kilograms.
Ilmenite as a source of titanium, as well as the metal itself, did not find industrial application for a long time after its discovery. This was due to the difficulty of extracting the useful component from the ore. Only in 1940 Guillaume Kroll from Luxembourg patented a relatively simple method of titanium production, which is still one of the main methods.
The real interest to the metal as a superstrong and superlight structural material appeared at the end of the World War II in connection with the emergence of jet aviation, and its main consumer at first was the air force. The choice of titanium as a material for aircraft parts was explained by its properties. Firstly, this metal is stronger than steel, but at the same time it is twice as light. Secondly, it is highly fire-resistant and heat-resistant. Moreover, titanium has increased corrosion resistance. Not a single trace of rust will appear on a plate made of this material for ten years of exposure to sea water. The metal is capable of withstanding high loads, such as those experienced, for example, by aircraft during takeoff and landing.
In the USSR, titanium was used not only for defense purposes, but also in various sectors of the economy. At chemical and metallurgical plants, steel parts were replaced with titanium ones to improve reliability of machinery. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia was left both without developed deposits and without leading processing plants, which were mainly located in Ukraine. Twenty years later, about 99,9 % of titanium raw materials in Russia come from other countries.
Today the country is exploring deposits containing titanium ores. The cost of titanium on the market is high and in the future experts predict its explosive growth.
The mineral ilmenite plays a significant role in supplying the world with titanium. In 2020, according to the American Geological Survey, ilmenite production in the world was about 5 million tons. The stone satisfies 90% of the world's demand for titanium raw materials.
Titanium from the mineral is also indispensable in medicine. It was determined that it is absolutely safe for the human body, which makes it an excellent material for various surgical prostheses and ointments for skin diseases. Besides, titanium plates are used in body armor and for making persistent bleaching.
In the Mining University of St. Petersburg there is an ongoing research in the field of development of new refractory substances on the basis of titanium. Experiments to obtain industrial production of materials with melting temperatures above 3,000 degrees Celsius, which are well-suited for aggressive saline environments, such as cryolite-alumina melts, in which electrolytic processes of aluminum extraction take place, are conducted at the Mineral Processing Department.
"Titanium oxides are used to produce titanium diboride. Furthermore, titanium oxides have different alloys, anatase and rutile, which can be used in pigmentation and even in the development of solar panels.
Mining scientists have suggested that the crystal lattice has increased activity at the moment of transition from anatase to rutile, but no one has studied what can be done about it. In practice, we proved in the laboratory conditions of the Mining University that through the correct composition of the reaction mixture and strict adherence to the low-temperature synthesis process, we can obtain titanium diboride, which is the refractory substance that is extremely demanded in metallurgy and space industry," says the assistant of the Automation of technological processes and productions department, Sergey Fedorov.
An insight of the research can be checked here:
We would like to remind readers that in 2019, German and Russian mineralogists from the Freiberg Mining Academy and the St. Petersburg Mining University made an expedition fully replicating the route of naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, which ran from Berlin to St. Petersburg and Moscow, then along the Volga to Kazan, the Urals, Siberia and back across the Caspian Sea.
Translated by Diego Monterrey, for Northwest Forpost.
