Titanium and its alloys has very imporant and critical place in critical applications. Because of this situation, titanium and titanium alloys are very precious in engineering and industry. In this article, we will explain the production of Titanium from its natural source and properties and applications of Titanium alloys.
Like other metals, titanium has also its special ores in earth crust. These ores are generally two types. The first one is ‘rutile(TiO2)’ which include titanium oxide in 98-99% inside of it. Other Titanium ore is ‘ilmenite(FeO, TiO2)’. The first one, rutile, is preffered titanium ore becuase of its high concentration titanium.
To obtain pure Titanium from these ores, there must some special processes applied to these Titanium ores. The first step to obtain pure Titanium from its ores, reacting Titanium ore with chlorine gas to obtain TiCl4. To eliminate and remove impurities at obtained TiCl4, some of distillation processes are applied. After that distillation process, highly concentrated TiCl4 is reacted with magnesium to obtain pure Titanium. This process is called as ‘Knoll Process’. Titanium tend to be react with O2, N2 and H2 gases, so at Knoll process, inert atmosphere must be obtained. This is the hardest side of that business.
Titanium has more stiff and strong than aluminum and has very low thermal expansion coefficient in around metals. Titanium preserves its mechanical and material properties at elevated temperatures as 550 celsius degrees. Also Titanium has superior corrosion resistancy because of its thin TiO2 layer on surface. Because this very high corrosion resistancy, Ti is used is marine applications and body implants. Stremgth-to-weigth ratio is also superior. Aluminum, Manganese, Vanadium and Tin can be alloying elements that are used in Titanium alloys.
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