How titanium ore is mined
One floating dredge can suck up 7,000 tons of dune sand an hour, and a floating plant behind it keeps the heavy grains.
- stations
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- things downstream
- 191
The short version
Titanium ore is often mined by a boat in a pond it digs for itself. A floating dredge cuts into mineral-rich sand and pumps it to a plant where screens and gravity spirals keep the heavy grains and return the rest. Magnets and electric fields then split that dark concentrate into ilmenite, rutile, zircon and monazite, with no chemicals at some operations.
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Dredge the sand
A dredge floats on an artificial pond and cuts into the ore at its edge or base, so the sand slumps in and gets pumped away. Eramet's dredge in Senegal is 50 m long and advances along the dunes. Dry mining units reach pockets a dredge cannot.
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Screen off the oversize
Rotating screens called trommels throw out oversize material. The rest moves on as a slurry to the concentrator.
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Spin out the heavies
Spiral chutes sort the slurry by gravity, leaving a concentrate of heavy minerals. Deposits usually hold just 3 to 12% of these, so most of the sand goes back to the pond as tailings for rebuilding the land.
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Pull with magnets
At a separate plant, magnetic separators divide the concentrate. The magnetic share is dried and treated further to make ilmenite products, while the rest goes through wet gravity circuits that remove silica and trash minerals.
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Split by static charge
Electrostatic separators exploit a difference in conductivity: rutile conducts, while zircon and monazite do not. Finished minerals go to warehouses and then to ships.
Worth repeating
- Ilmenite is the main source of titanium dioxide, the white pigment used in paint, sunscreen and paper.
- Rutile ranks among the known crystals with the highest refractive index, which gives it a diamond-like sparkle.
- Kenmare's Moma operation moves almost 40 million tonnes of titanium-rich sand a year, mostly by dredge.
Where it goes next
Titanium ore feeds 2 lines directly and reaches 191 things in total.
Further down the line
Keep walking
Sources
- Moma's operating process (Kenmare Resources)
- Production (Eramet Grande Cote)
- Titanium processing
- Ilmenite
- Rutile
Cite this page: "How titanium ore is mined." Assembly Line, 2026-11-03. https://assemblyline.org/make/titanium-ore