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Titanium – About to Steal the MarketTitanium is less dense than steel but so tough that it can survive marine environments. It is mechanically a very strong material as well. So why don’t we make cars, boats and pans out of it? Because it is expensive, six times as expensive as steel to make. Well, that used to be the case.An accidental observation in the lab of Derek Fray at Cambridge University, England has changed all this. The researchers were trying to drag oxygen ions just below the surface of titanium plates to the surface using a voltage supply. But instead what they observed that the oxide surface coating was converted into pure titanium metal. When they tried the same experiment with titanium oxide (used as the light scattering pigment in paint and paper), the same outcome resulted, namely conversion of the oxide to pure titanium metal. This was the modern day equivalent of a gold-mine. Put in electrons, outcomes metal more valuable than steel. The traditional procedure for making titanium uses the Kroll process. Titanium ore is coverted to titanium tetrachloride. This is reacted with magnesium which displaces the titanium, carried out in a batch process. This new process is 7 times as fast as the Kroll process, uses stream instead of batch processing, and is less polluting than the Kroll process. The new process is known as the FFC Cambridge process, after its discoverers. A careful and considered observation of an unexpected laboratory result has changed the lives of those thorough scientists and most likely the way the world constructs everything from buildings to transportation. It is ironic that this medal worthy work with a worthy metal is relatively unpublicized.
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