Patent ID: 8728437

Claim:
A sulfate process for producing titania from a titaniferous material comprising: a. providing a leachant including particulate titanyl sulfate; b. filtering the leachant to substantially remove titanyl sulfate particles that are not able to pass through a filter having 1 μm openings to provide a filtered leachant; c. leaching said titaniferous material with the filtered leachant to form a process solution that includes an acidic solution of titanyl sulfate and iron sulfate wherein the filtering is effective to prevent unwanted precipitation of titanyl sulfate during leaching, and subsequent downstream steps comprising; d. separating the process solution from a residual solid phase; e. precipitating titanyl sulfate from the process solution from step (d); f. separating the precipitated titanyl sulfate from the process solution; g. treating the precipitated titanyl sulfate to produce a titanyl sulfate solution; h. hydrolyzing the titanyl sulfate to form a solid phase containing hydrated titanium oxides and a liquid phase; i. separating the solid phase and the liquid phase; and, j. calcining the solid phase from step (i) to form titania.