A study on process mineralogy of ilmenite in the Chang’e-5 lunar soil

<p indent="0mm">The Chang ′e-5 mission sampling site is located in the lunar mare basalt unit of the Oceanus Procellarum. The sample contains 5% to 10% ilmenite. In this paper, the process mineralogy of ilmenite has been studied from the perspective of resource utilization, in order to provide basic parameters for mining, processing and smelting of mineral resources of the Moon. By using scanning electron microscopy and electron probe, we have studied mineral composition of the Chang ′e-5 sample and its contained ilmenite properties including the particle size characteristics, particle shapes, chemical compositions and dissociation degrees of ilmenites in the sample. The results show that ilmenites in the Chang ′e-5 basalt are mainly fine grained, with sizes of 97% ilmenites varying from 7.5 to <sc>200 μm.</sc> Ilmenite particles are granular, acicular, columnar and irregular shaped. Most of them are granular and irregular shaped. The average contents of TiO₂ and FeO in ilmenites are 50.78% and 47.35% respectively. Especially, the variation ranges of TiO₂ contents in granular and irregular ilmenites are larger than those of the acicular and columnar ilmenites. The smaller the overall size of the mineral particles containing ilmenite, the greater the degree of monomer dissociation of ilmenite, ilmenite more easily dissociated into monomer.