Titanium Tetrachloride Production by the Chloride Ilmenite Process


I.   Executive Summary


          This document presents EPA's factual basis for proposing to withdraw a waste
generated in the production of titanium tetrachloride by the chloride-ilmenite process from
the RCRA Mining Waste Exclusion.  The waste in question, titanium tetrachloride waste
acids (which implicitly includes iron chloride), was one of numerous mineral processing
wastes that was made conditionally exempt from RCRA Subtitle C requirements under the
Bevill Amendment to RCRA, and later codified at 40 CFR Part 261.4(b)(7).  In 1989,
following a study of the nature and characteristics of this waste, EPA determined that
titanium tetrachloride waste acids (and therefore iron chloride) did not qualify for the Mining
Waste Exclusion.

     In contrast to wastes from beneficiation operations, mineral processing wastes were
required to meet two criteria in order to continue to qualify for the Mining Waste Exclusion: 
(1) the waste had to be a low hazard waste; and (2) it had to be generated in large volumes,
defined as greater than 45,000 metric tons per year per facility for a solid waste or 1 million
metric tons per year per facility for a liquid waste (averaged across the commodity sector). 
EPA's findings indicated that titanium tetrachloride waste acids exhibited the characteristic of
EP toxicity for chromium, making them a hazardous waste, and were generated in annual
volumes of less than 1 million metric tons per facility; therefore, the Agency concluded that
titanium tetrachloride waste acids, implicitly including iron chloride, should be withdrawn
from the Mining Waste Exclusion.

     Du Pont, which is the sole generator of the iron chloride waste in question, filed a
lawsuit against EPA claiming that its process was different than the conventional chloride
process and, therefore, that its wastes (including iron chloride) should be considered
separately for Bevill status.  Du Pont claimed that EPA had ignored the information provided
in Du Pont's written comments on several notices of proposed rulemaking addressing the
Exclusion, and that the Agency had not provided an adequate justification for its decision. 
The federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, in reviewing EPA's decision to withdraw
titanium tetrachloride waste acids from the Mining Waste Exclusion, found that the Agency
had not provided an adequate, reasonable justification in the public record to support its
action.  

     The purpose of this technical background document is to provide a description of the
Du Pont chloride-ilmenite process and the generation of the iron chloride waste, and to
provide EPAs' evaluation of this the process.  This evaluation serves as the technical basis
for EPA's response to the Court's directives regarding the regulatory status of the iron
chloride waste.