Becher_process
The Becher process is an industrial process used to produce rutile, a form of titanium dioxide, from the ore ilmenite. It is competitive with the chloride process and the sulfate process, which achieve similar net conversions.[1][2]
With the idealized formula FeTiO3, ilmenite contains 55-65% titanium dioxide, the rest being iron oxide. The Becher process, like other beneficiation processes, aims to remove iron. The Becher process exploits the conversion of the ferrous iron (FeO) to ferric iron (Fe2O3).[3] Ilmenite ores can be upgraded to synthetic rutile by increasing their TiO2 content to between 90 and 96 percent. [4]