Effect of Heat Treatment in Microwave Furnace for Placer Ilmenite

Microwave energy has potential for the efficient heating of minerals. Minerals or materials, which couple to microwave energy are called dielectrics and many valuable minerals are found to be dielectric. The mineral ilmenite is one which shows good dielectric heating characteristics. In this paper the effect of microwave heat energy on the partial reduction of oxidized ilmenite oxidized in a conventional muffle furnace at 1000°C for 3 hour is also attempted. Carbon as low ash coke with 87.5% purity act as an additive was used for reduction of ilmenite at different time intervals using microwave sintering furnace. The results of these investigations indicate that at one minute of time the metallic iron formed contain 0.39% and of course no observation in mineral phases was noticed. At three minutes of duration of time, a partial phase transformation of ilmenite was observed and the metallic iron contain is 1.65%. Interestingly at above ten minutes duration of time a distinct metallic iron phase containing 35% metallic iron is seen in microwave furnace. Further studies are in progress.