Tita­ni­um-zir­co­ni­um ores: dis­tri­b­u­tion and gen­e­sis

Tita­ni­um ores are an inte­gral com­po­nent of mod­ern indus­try and tech­no­log­i­cal progress. Due to their unique prop­er­ties and wide range of appli­ca­tions, tita­ni­um has become an essen­tial mate­r­i­al in the pro­duc­tion of air­craft engines, med­ical equip­ment, sports goods, and many oth­er fields. Under­stand­ing the dis­tri­b­u­tion and gen­e­sis of tita­ni­um-zir­co­ni­um ores in Ukraine is impor­tant for the devel­op­ment of indus­tries relat­ed to their extrac­tion and fur­ther pro­cess­ing. Research on these issues con­tributes to improv­ing extrac­tion tech­nolo­gies and ensures sus­tain­able sup­ply of valu­able met­als for the pro­duc­tion of var­i­ous prod­ucts in Ukraine’s econ­o­my.

Tita­ni­um ores are includ­ed in the list of min­er­als of nation­al impor­tance approved in Res­o­lu­tion No. 827 of the Cab­i­net of Min­is­ters of Ukraine dat­ed 12 Decem­ber 1994, as non-fer­rous met­al ores.

Accord­ing to for­ma­tion con­di­tions, tita­ni­um-zir­co­ni­um ores in Ukraine are divid­ed into the fol­low­ing types:

• coastal-marine facies of shal­low sea,
• con­ti­nen­tal,
• resid­ual,
• mod­ern beach­es and shal­low shelf.

Cur­rent­ly, the first three types are being devel­oped, which belong to ancient buried plac­ers (at depths from 10 to 100 m), while mod­ern ones are open. Plac­ers of coastal-marine facies of shal­low sea with com­plex zir­con-rutile-ilmenite com­po­si­tion (Maly­shevsky geo­log­i­cal-indus­tri­al type) are con­fined to sandy-clay deposits of Oligocene-Miocene seas. They are devel­oped on the Ukrain­ian Shield, Dnieper-Donet­sk, Black Sea depres­sions and form the Prid­ne­provsk, Azov-Black Sea, and Kharkiv-Sumy plac­er zones.

Pridneprovsk Placer Zone

The most pro­duc­tive is the Prid­ne­provsk plac­er zone, 50–100 km wide, which extends for 700 km along the north­east­ern slope of the Ukrain­ian Shield with­in the Dnipropetro­vsk region. The zone con­tains major indus­tri­al tita­ni­um-zir­co­ni­um deposits — Volchan­sky, Voskre­senivsky, Yuzh­ny, Tara­sivsky, and also the largest in Europe — Maly­shevsky, on the basis of which the Vil­no­hirsk Min­ing and Met­al­lur­gi­cal Plant oper­ates. This plant is one of the world’s largest com­plex­es for min­ing and pro­cess­ing rare earth ores, pro­duc­ing 40 types of prod­ucts, pri­mar­i­ly rutile, ilmenite, zir­co­ni­um and kyan­ite-sil­li­man­ite con­cen­trates; zir­co­ni­um diox­ide; yttri­um-sta­bi­lized zir­co­ni­um oxide; zir­co­ni­um monox­ide; zir­co­ni­um chlorox­ide; zir­co­ni­um car­bon­ate; fian­ite; sil­i­con tetra­chlo­ride; hafni­um diox­ide; elec­trolyt­ic hafni­um pow­der; mold­ing quartz sands.

The plant was award­ed the Inter­na­tion­al “Gold­en Globe” Prize in 1996. The plac­ers range from small to very large in reserves, lie among fine-grained sands, are com­posed of rel­a­tive­ly well-sort­ed sands, with pro­duc­tive hori­zons of sig­nif­i­cant thick­ness (10 m). Ore-bear­ing hori­zons are locat­ed in the upper parts of the sec­tions. Sand enrich­ment with ore min­er­als occurred due to rede­po­si­tion of low­er pro­duc­tive hori­zons. The main use­ful min­er­als are ilmenite, leu­cox­ene, rutile, zir­con, kyan­ite, stau­ro­lite, sil­li­man­ite, and oth­ers. The con­tent of valu­able min­er­als is n • 10 kg/m³. Ilmenite in the sands is high­ly altered, with high TiO₂ con­tent (64–68%). Ore sands are well enriched with obtain­ing con­cen­trates of all use­ful min­er­als. In Ukraine, 11 ancient com­plex tita­ni­um-zir­co­ni­um deposits, about 280 ore occur­rences, and 1,400 min­er­al­iza­tion points are known.

Volyn Placer District

In the Zhy­to­myr region, in the area of the Volo­darsk-Volyn­sky mas­sif of basic rocks of the Ukrain­ian Shield, the Irshan­sk group of con­ti­nen­tal allu­vial, allu­vial-delu­vial Qua­ter­nary and Meso­zoic plac­ers is known, as well as plac­ers of resid­ual ilmenite and ilmenite-apatite weath­er­ing crusts. The Irshan­sk group of deposits includes: Irshan­sk, Verkhnoir­shan­sk, Lem­nenske, Livoberezhne, Mezhyrichne, Ushynske, Ushomyrske, Zlobytske, Valky-Hatkivske, Torchynske, and oth­ers.

On the rocks of gab­bro-anorthosite mas­sifs, a Meso­zoic weath­er­ing crust of plateau type formed, with an aver­age thick­ness of 10–15 m. The con­tent of slight­ly altered ilmenite in pro­duc­tive zones of the weath­er­ing crust ranges from 30 to 130 kg/m³.The Irshan­sk Min­ing and Pro­cess­ing Plant oper­ates on the basis of the Irshan­sk group of deposits.

Novomyrhorod Placer District

In the Cherkasy and Kirovohrad regions, with­in the Kor­sun-Novomyrhorod plu­ton of the Ukrain­ian Shield, the Horodyshchen­sko-Smil­ian­s­ka and Novomyrhorod groups of allu­vial, allu­vial-delu­vial ilmenite plac­ers are known. Ilmenite allu­vial plac­ers formed dur­ing the ero­sion of Meso­zoic weath­er­ing crust of ilmenite-bear­ing gab­bro-anorthosites and are con­fined to Ear­ly Cre­ta­ceous, Ear­ly Eocene, and Qua­ter­nary deposits. These are usu­al­ly plate-like and lens-like bod­ies with thick­ness­es from sev­er­al to 10–15 m, extend­ing for sev­er­al hun­dred meters, lying on the weath­er­ing crust of gab­bro-anorthosites or Meso-Ceno­zoic sed­i­men­ta­ry for­ma­tions. The plac­ers are com­posed of var­i­ous-grained sands. Ilmenite is dis­trib­uted very uneven­ly, with an aver­age con­tent of 70–80 kg/m³. Ilmenite from allu­vial plac­ers is slight­ly altered (leu­cox­eniza­tion degree 5–50%, TiO₂ con­tent 49–54%). This type of deposit is clas­si­fied as the Irshan­sk geo­log­i­cal-indus­tri­al type.

Berdyansk, Ochakiv-Dzharylhach, Vylkove Placer Fields

Plac­ers of mod­ern beach­es and shal­low shelf are grouped on sandy spits and rel­a­tive­ly short sec­tions of the north­ern shores of the Azov and Black Seas. The main ore min­er­als are ilmenite, rutile, leu­cox­ene, zir­con, some­times mon­azite, columbite, cas­si­terite are present; among non-metal­lic min­er­als, about 10–20% of the heavy frac­tion con­sists of min­er­als of the kyan­ite-sil­li­man­ite group and stau­ro­lite. The indus­tri­al val­ue of these plac­ers is small (Dzharyl­hach geo­log­i­cal-indus­tri­al type). The main sources of tita­ni­um-zir­co­ni­um plac­ers are crys­talline rocks of the Ukrain­ian Shield, their weath­er­ing crust, as well as pri­ma­ry tita­ni­um and zir­co­ni­um deposits.

Ukraine is sup­plied with tita­ni­um and zir­co­ni­um ore reserves for a sig­nif­i­cant peri­od and is a monop­o­list in the CIS. Tita­ni­um con­cen­trate pro­duc­tion in Ukraine amounts to 20% of the world’s pro­duc­tion. It sup­plies raw mate­ri­als to its own enter­pris­es (Sumy Pro­duc­tion Asso­ci­a­tion “Khim­prom”, Crimean Pro­duc­tion Asso­ci­a­tion “Titan”, Zapor­izhzhia Tita­ni­um and Mag­ne­sium Plant) and exports a sig­nif­i­cant amount to oth­er coun­tries.

Thus, tita­ni­um ores are a key resource for mod­ern indus­tri­al pro­duc­tion, their impor­tance can­not be over­es­ti­mat­ed. How­ev­er, increas­ing demand for tita­ni­um and its alloys also presents chal­lenges regard­ing sup­ply sus­tain­abil­i­ty and extrac­tion effi­cien­cy. To ensure sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and bal­anced use of resources, it is nec­es­sary to con­tin­ue research in the field of tita­ni­um ores, devel­op new extrac­tion and pro­cess­ing tech­nolo­gies, and imple­ment effec­tive mate­r­i­al usage strate­gies that will pre­serve this impor­tant resource for future gen­er­a­tions.