Titanium bars are an essential component of the aerospace, petroleum, chemical, and medical industries. They are made from titanium, a metallic element that is characterized by its resistance to corrosion, strength, and lightness.
Titanium Extraction
Titanium naturally occurs in the Earth’s lithosphere, in soils, rocks, bodies of water, and other living things. It is extracted from mineral ores through the Hunter process or Kroll process.
The Hunter process is an industrial process invented by chemist Matthew A. Hunter, who conceived this method to generate metallic titanium that is pure and ductile. It starts with the preparation of a mixture of chlorine, coke, and rutile, which is heated to high temperature, to produce titanium tetrachloride and carbon dioxide. With the use of sodium, titanium tetrachloride goes through reduction to yield 99.9% pure metallic titanium.
The chemical equation looks like this:
TiO2(s) + 2Cl2 (g) + C (s) → TiCl4(l) + CO2 (g)
TiCl4(l) + 4Na(l) → 4NaCl(l) + Ti(s)
The Kroll process was invented by metallurgist William Kroll and is an industrial method of titanium extraction that utilizes pyrometallurgy. It begins with the preparation of a mixture of refined rutile and petroleum-derived coke, followed by treatment with chlorine gas and going through fractional distillation until reduction process is complete.
The chemical process is shown by the equation:
2Mg(l) + TiCl4(g) → 2MgCl2(l) + Ti(s) [T = 800-850 °C]
Common Uses Of Titanium Bars
When alloyed with other elements, like iron, manganese, aluminum, and molybdenum, the material can become stronger and withstand higher temperatures, thus making it available for more industrial applications.
Titanium bar products are available in varying grades, and the most commonly-used are Grade 1, Grade 2, and Grade 5. They can also be round, rectangular, or square, and they differ in diameter, length, and weight.
Some other applications of titanium bars are in construction, welding, sporting goods, weaponry, jewelry, electronics, textile dyeing and printing, redrawing, mesh weaving, electric power, condensers, seawater desalination, metallurgy, and navigation.