Report on research into the beneficiation of ilmenite from Westport, New Zealand and three other locations using ERMS technology

This report summarises the research programme over four years of prior bench-scale research by Austpac. The results pointed to the probability that a new generation of titaniferous feedstocks and titanium dioxide products could be developed using ERMS technology. ERMS is a pyrometallurgical treatment of ilmenite in a fluid bed reactor, under controlled conditions. Its effect is to selectively induce a high level of magnetisation in ilmenites, and a high degree of leachability in hydrochloric acid. This allows very high recoveries and separation of ilmenite from gangue, and the manufacture of very pure synthetic rutile, both giving results well in excess of any existing conventional methodology.