Titanium alone allow titanium to outperform other materials in a wide variety of applications from powerful jet engines to beautiful jewelry Other appli(cid:173) cations however may surprise you One compound of is commonly used as a white pigment in paints papers makeup and foods An alloy of titanium can even remember its original shape and return to it after being bent and warped titanium Titanium wasn't widely used until the 1940s and 1950s However our understanding of the element has come a long way since then As titanium refining and production become more affordable it is quickly becoming a wonder metal with hundreds of forms and uses Titanium car parts will be stronger longer lasting more rust resistant and shinier than today's parts They will also save gas because they will be lighter Titanium skyscrapers will stretch higher than ever before Athletes will break long-standing records using titanium equipment Titanium is quickly proving to be the metal of the future 96
Chapter One The History of Titanium Titanium symbol Ti is the ninth most abundant element on Earth and the sixth most abundant metal on Earth after aluminum iron sodium potassium and magnesium Titanium is never found as a metal in nature It is most often found as a component of the minerals rutile and ilmenite but it is also found in many other minerals including silicates and oxides Titanium is often present in sandy areas such as beaches Traces of titanium are present in humans animals plants soils and bodies of water Pure titanium is lustrous or shiny and silvery in color It is lightweight for a metal and very strong It resists corrosion and can be easily shaped It is available in many forms today including sheets bars and powders It is commonly combined with other elements such as oxygen nickel and aluminum to create other useful materials Titanium's unique character istics make it one of the most useful metals Discovery Titanium was discovered in 1791 by the English mineralogist Reverend William Gregor One day Gregor found a curious black sand near a stream in the village of Manaccan England Gregor discovered that the sand was attracted to a magnet After analyzing the strange sand he discovered
Titanium This portrait of William Gregor was painted in the late 1700s After he discovered titanium Gregor went on to identify titanium in other minerals that it contained two metal oxides He identified one as iron oxide This was the reason the sand was attracted to the magnet However Gregor could not identify the other oxide He realized that he had accidentally discovered the oxide of a previously unknown metal Gregor reported his discovery to the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall and to a German science journal Even though he was unable to isolate the metal Gregor named the mysterious element manaccanite after the place where it was discovered In 1795 the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth also discovered titanium in a mineral called rutile the most common natural source of titanium dioxide Unaware of Gregor's previous discovery Klaproth named the metal titanium after the Titans of Greek mythology Klaproth soon heard of Gregor's discovery He obtained a sample of manaccanite and confirmed that it contained the same metal oxide that he had found in rutile Once this connection was made Gregor was officially credited with the discovery of the metal However the name titanium stuck The Search for Pure Titanium Both Gregor and Klaproth continued to identify and experiment with the titanium based minerals but neither was able to isolate pure titanium 8
The History of Titanium metal This did not happen until 1910 That year the American chemist Matthew A Hunter heated titanium tetrachloride with sodium metal under great pressure in a sealed container called a steel bomb The result was 99 8 percent pure titanium metal This process became known as the Hunter process The Hunter process proved to be costly and inefficient It was not possible to produce significant amounts of titanium outside of the labora(cid:173) tory In 1937 William J Kroll a scientist from Luxembourg produced pure titanium using magnesium instead of sodium This process proved to be less expensive than the Hunter process By 1947 only about two tons of titanium had been produced in the United States using the Kroll process Then in 1 948 the DuPont company began industrial production using the Kroll process This process is still used to produce most commercial titanium today although scientists are working on developing alternate processes The first products made from titanium included wire sheets and rods Beginning in the 1950s the Soviet Union found military uses for titanium using it to manufacture submarines The United States also realized how useful the metal could be especially for the production of jet engines Scientists have developed new uses for titanium although the most common use for pure titanium is still within the aircraft industry left William J Kroll shown here Europe for the United States just before the outbreak of World War II Once there he was able to produce pure zirconium using the same process he had used to produce pure titanium
