The primary titanium ores (vein ores) utilized industrially are all titanium-bearing composite iron ores. The beneficiation process comprises three stages: pre-concentration, iron separation, and titanium separation. The titanium separation stage is further divided into roughing and cleaning phases.
1) Pre-concentration
In some titanium vein ores, a significant amount of gangue minerals achieves substantial liberation at a coarse particle size following initial crushing. These coarse, liberated gangue minerals are discarded during the pre-concentration operation, thereby increasing processing capacity and raising the feed grade for subsequent stages. Pre-concentration can be integrated into the crushing circuit. Common methods include magnetic separation and gravity separation.
2) Iron Separation
The primary industrial objective in processing titanium-bearing composite iron ores is to obtain iron concentrates and vanadium-bearing iron concentrates. Simple and effective magnetic separation is employed; the ore undergoes crushing (or pre-concentration) and grinding to achieve the necessary degree of mineral liberation. Wet low-intensity magnetic separators (drum or belt types) are used to recover the iron or vanadium-bearing iron concentrates, while the magnetic separation tailings serve as the feedstock for comprehensive titanium recovery. In cases where iron and titanium minerals are finely disseminated and difficult to separate into distinct concentrates, gravity separation alone may be used to discard tailings, producing a mixed iron-titanium concentrate that is subsequently roasted or smelted to yield high-purity pig iron and titanium slag.
3) Titanium Separation
Titanium recovery from vein ores is carried out using the tailings from the iron separation stage. Methods include gravity separation, magnetic separation, electrostatic separation, and flotation. Industrial titanium beneficiation flowsheets include the following:
(1) Gravity separation–electrostatic separation flowsheet: This involves gravity separation for roughing and electrostatic separation for cleaning. Key gravity separation equipment includes spiral concentrators (including spiral chutes) and shaking tables. Gravity separation roughing serves to discard low-density gangue minerals or waste rock, producing a rough concentrate for the cleaning stage. Electrostatic separation: Roll-type electrostatic separators are commonly used for cleaning the rough concentrate to obtain the final product. For sulfur-bearing ores, an auxiliary flotation step to remove sulfide minerals is often employed between the roughing and cleaning stages.
(2) Gravity separation–magnetic separation–flotation flowsheet. This process is characterized by the classification of the run-of-mine ore, followed by gravity roughing of the coarse fraction, magnetic cleaning, and flotation of the fine fraction. Gravity separation is performed using shaking tables, while magnetic separation utilizes dry magnetic separators. The flotation feed size is -0.074 mm, and reagents include MOS-II, oxidized paraffin soap, sulfuric acid, sodium chloride, oleic acid, diesel oil, and pine oil.
(3) Single-stage flotation flowsheet. Flotation is an effective method for beneficiating finely disseminated titaniferous vein ores. While the single-stage flotation process is simple and easy to manage, it entails higher reagent costs and raises environmental concerns regarding tailings disposal; consequently, it is not yet widely applied in industry. Reagents currently used include sulfuric acid, tall oil, diesel oil, and the emulsifier Etoxolp-19.

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