Titanium

Introduction

Titanium is a lustrous, white metal when pure. Titanium minerals are quite common. The metal has a low density, good strength, is easily fabricated, and has excellent corrosion resistance. The metal burns in air and is the only element that burns in nitrogen. It is marvelous in fireworks (Emsley: 14). Titanium is resistant to dilute sulphuric and hydrochloric acid, most organic acids, damp chlorine gas, and chloride solutions. Titanium metal is considered to be physiologically inert. Titanium is present in meteorites and in the sun. Some lunar rocks contain high concentrations of the dioxide, TiO2. Titanium oxide bands are prominent in the spectra of M-type stars (“Titanium - Ti” [online source]).

Discussion

Titanium has been around since 1790 and gets it name from the Greek God “Titan”, the God of enormous strength. Not until 1910, 120 years since the discovery of the ore in England, was there a process developed that allowed the metal to be extracted from the ore.

The individual responsible for this process was a gentleman by the name of M.A. Hunter. The basic process created by Mr. Hunter involved mixing TiO2 with coke and chlorine. When heat was applied to the TiO2 the resulting product was TiCl4 (Flower: 89). Then sodium was used to reduce the TiCl4 . At this point in time, the titanium produced by this method was used as an alloying agent in the production of steel.

TiO2 was a bi-product of the process developed by Hunter and it was determined that it had the characteristics necessary to make it a great white pigment. As a result it was used in paint specifically for this reason.

Although the Hunter process was a viable method to extract the metal from the ore, it proved not conducive to large scale manufacturing efforts. A gentleman by the name of Dr. Wilhelm Kroll ...