Reaction mechanism and kinetics of ferrotitanium preparation by aluminothermic reduction of CaTiO3

A ferrotitanium alloy production process by aluminothermic reduction and using perovskite as materials was studied in laboratory. The thermodynamics of the Al-CaO, Al-CaO-CaTiO3, Al-CaO-Fe-CaTiO3 system was calculated and the reduction process of CaTiO3 to prepare ferrotitanium was investigated. The Freeman-Carroll method was used to analyze the kinetics of aluminothermic reduction process. The results show that ferrotitanium alloys can be produced by aluminothermic reduction using perovskite as material. In the reduction process, the reduction reaction of TiO2 in CaTiO3 by aluminum proceeds at 1000–1100 ℃, and the formation temperature of ferrotitanium alloy is between 1400 ℃ and 1500 ℃. CaO not only acts as a slag-forming agent in the reaction process, but also participates in the reduction reaction process. The apparent activation energy and the reaction order at the reduction peak decrease with the increasing of heating rate which indicates that the reaction is easier with the increase of heating rate.