Recovering chlorine from the chlorination of titaniferous material

Claim 1

In a process for chlorination of titaniferous material with chlorine gas with the resulting generation of a feed vapor laden with titanium tetrachloride and ferric chloride, the improvement which comprises: contacting said feed vapor with sodium chloride in a complexing zone under conditions for converting said ferric chloride therein into liquid ferric chloride salt complex while permitting said titanium tetrachloride to remain as vapor residue; withdrawing said liquid salt complex from said complexing zone; atomizing withdrawn salt complex; intimately mixing the resulting atomizate with molecular oxygen in a substantially empty salt complex oxidation zone at temperature between about 400° and about 750° C. for average residence time of about 0.5 to 20 seconds, thereby converting said atomized salt complex into recovered chlorine gas, solid iron oxide and sodium chloride byproduct; withdrawing said byproduct from said salt complex oxidizing zone; withdrawing a stream of recovered chlorine gas from said salt complex oxidizing zone; and contacting said withdrawn stream of recovered chlorine gas with sodium chloride in a complexing zone under conditions for converting the ferric chloride therein into liquid ferric chloride salt complex while permitting chlorine gas to remain as a gas residue, and removing said gas residue from said complexing zone.