MIET2115 Report: Titanium Extraction, Alloys, and Industrial Uses

This report provides a comprehensive overview of titanium and its alloys. It begins by explaining the process of extracting titanium metal from rutile ore, detailing the conversion to titanium IV chloride and subsequent reduction to titanium metal using sodium or magnesium. The report then discusses the manufacturing of titanium alloys, highlighting the use of elements like aluminum, vanadium, and others, as well as the Vacuum Arc Remelting (VAR) method. It focuses on alpha alloys, including their characteristics and examples like commercially pure titanium. The report also explores the diverse applications of titanium and its alloys in various industries, including aerospace (missiles, rockets, and airplanes), biomedical (implants and surgical elements), and consumer products (tennis rackets). The analysis concludes with a summary of titanium's properties and its wide-ranging applications.

Running head: MIET2115
MIET2115
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1. Introduction
Titanium processing is all about the extraction of titanium metal from its ores and
preparing its alloys and compounds (Tang et al. 2016). This report shall elaborate on
explaining how titanium ore is refined for making a useable titanium alloy. The main focus
would be the process used for extracting titanium metal from rutile and the class of titanium
alloy, including standard composition, heat treatment and mechanical properties as a result of
specific heat treatments along. It shall also provide some examples of its uses.
2. Discussion
2.1. Process of extracting titanium metal from rutile
Titanium mental is extracted from rutile (its ore) - TiO2. In this process, it is first
converted into Titanium IV Chloride and then reduced to titanium metal by means of using
sodium or magnesium (Zou et al. 2017). Rutile is the impure form of Titanium, which is also
known as Titanium IV Oxide. Rutile is then heated with coke and chlorine at 1000˚C.
2.3. Making of Titanium Alloy
It is to note that Titanium alloys are made from elements like aluminium, cobalt, tin,
molybdenum, vanadium, zirconium and cobalt. The capacity to alloy and its allotropic
behaviour with these elements result in the formation of titanium alloys. Vacuum Arc
Remelting (VAR) is the primary method for manufacturing the titanium alloy (Kou et al.
2014).
2.4. A class of titanium alloy
One of the classes of titanium alloys is Alpha alloys. These alloys have hexagonal
closely packed crystallographic structure. An example to consider is the aluminium that is an

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alpha phase stabiliser and can be found in several commercially available alloys.
Furthermore, it is also to mention that a major class of alpha alloys is the “unalloyed
commercially pure titanium family of alloys that differ in terms of the iron and oxygen in
every alloy. These alloys are non-heat treatable and at the same time, are quite wieldable.
2.5. Uses of titanium and its alloys
Titanium has a significant level of corrosion resistance to sea water and therefore, is
used in rigging, propeller shafts and the other different parts of boats that are exposed to the
seawater. Apart from this, its alloys are also used in missiles, rockets and airplane where the
strength, resistance and the low weight to the high temperatures are critical (Fu et al. 2015).
They are used in the engine applications like compressor blades, nacelles etc. Furthermore,
these alloys are also used in several materials in the field of biomedical including implants
and surgical elements. These alloys are the alpha alloys (the commercial pure titanium).
When titanium is alloyed with vanadium, that alloy can be used in a range of components
like landing gear, hydraulic systems, fire walls etc. They are also used in tennis rackets,
hockey, football helmet grills etc.
3. Conclusion
Hence, from the above analysis it is to conclude that titanium is a very useful element.
Its alloys have high level of tensile strength to density, high corrosion resistance and have the
ability of withstanding high temperatures. Both titanium and its alloys have many industrial,
consumers, medical, aerospace and architectural applications.

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References:
Fu, T., Zhan, Z., Zhang, L., Yang, Y., Liu, Z., Liu, J., Li, L. and Yu, X., 2015. Effect of
surface mechanical attrition treatment on corrosion resistance of commercial pure
titanium. Surface and Coatings Technology, 280, pp.129-135.
Kou, H., Zhang, Y., Li, P., Zhong, H., Hu, R., Li, J. and Zhou, L., 2014. Numerical
simulation of titanium alloy ingot solidification structure during VAR process based on three-
dimensional CAFE method. Rare Metal Materials and Engineering, 43(7), pp.1537-1542.
Tang, C., Yu, X., Chen, J., Han, Q. and Liu, K., 2016. Preparation of titanium by
electrochemical reduction of titanium dioxide powder in molten SrCl2–KCl. Journal of
Alloys and Compounds, 684, pp.699-706.
Zou, X., Li, S., Lu, X., Xu, Q., Chen, C., Guo, S. and Zhou, Z., 2017. Direct Extraction of
Titanium Alloys/Composites from Titanium Compounds Ores in Molten CaCl2. Materials
Transactions, 58(3), pp.331-340.