Preliminary study on the use of rice husk as a reducing agent in iron sand reduction

Titanium is a valuable mineral that has many advanced functions in our daily lives. This has caused the demand for this mineral to increase over the years. Researchers have long studied the use of reduction methods using coal in increasing titanium content in iron sand before further processing. Considering the sulfur content in coal which causes various excess problems in the reduction process, then in this experimental study we tried to examine the potential of rice husk as a reduction agent in the iron sand reduction process. This study includes several stages, namely roasting and reduction processes with or without the addition of Na₂SO₄, and magnetic separation. The weight ratio of iron sand and rice husk used in this study was 10: 1, while the reduction process was carried out at a temperature of 700°C for 60 minutes, followed by the magnetic separation process. Characterization of samples was carried out using XRD and ICP-MS. And the final results obtained after magnetic separation showed that the Ti content in the product tail was higher than the Ti content in the concentrate, which was 0.692% and 0.221% respectively.