The British-Australian multinational mining company, Rio Tinto, announced on Monday the approval for the resumption of Richards Bay Minerals’ $473 million Zulti South project in South Africa, six years after the undertaking was put on hold due to community unrest.
Rio Tinto maintains a 74% ownership stake in Richards Bay Minerals, which is engaged in the mining of the mineral-rich sands within the KwaZulu-Natal region of South Africa, Reuters reports.
Why is this relevant?
Rio Tinto is a mining company that primarily extracts zircon, rutile, ilmenite, and titanium oxide, materials utilized in the manufacturing of paint, sunscreen, and cellphones.
Zircon, rutile, ilmenite, and titanium oxide are all closely related industrial minerals that play important roles in global manufacturing and advanced engineering.
Despite their chemical differences, they are frequently found together in nature and go through comparable extraction and processing chains before ending up in a variety of daily and high-tech items.
Their most important application is the manufacturing of titanium dioxide, one of the world’s most often used white pigments.
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Titanium dioxide, derived mostly from rutile and ilmenite, provides paints with their brightness and opacity, allowing walls, cars, and industrial equipment to retain long-lasting finishes.
It is also utilized in plastics, paper, rubber, cosmetics, sunscreen, and toothpaste due to its ability to reflect light and resist UV radiation.
Without these minerals, many consumer and construction items would lack whiteness, durability, and weather resistance.
Beyond pigments, these minerals are essential for the synthesis of titanium metal. Titanium is appreciated for its light weight, remarkable strength, and corrosion resistance.
As a result, it is employed in aircraft production, aerospace components, medical implants, desalination plants, power generation systems, and some military applications.
Rutile, with its high titanium content, is particularly useful for this purpose, but ilmenite is frequently improved before being turned into metal or pigments.
