A Cleaner, Cheaper Route to Titanium 335
Burlap writes "Using technology developed at MIT, 4-person startup Avanti Metal hopes to reduce the cost of producing Titanium from the current $40 per pound to a mere $3. The article discusses how a special combinations of oxides and electrolysis separates the titanium metal from the Earth's abundant titanium oxide ore."
Print Friendly View (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, the ad... not very helpful.
Re:Print Friendly View (Score:3, Funny)
It made sense when I started typing. It's too damn early...
--Mike
Ad problem. (Score:2)
Seriously, though, to read the article, I had to "Copy Link Location" and paste it into the address bar, and it worked.
Great article, too. I love hearing stuff like this.
Re:Ad problem. (Score:2)
Re:Ad problem. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Ad problem. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ad problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ad problem. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ad problem. (Score:3, Informative)
Pure ti ranges from 35,000 PSI to 100,000PSI [key-to-metals.com] yield strength, depending on the route of manufacture. Some ti alloys go as high as 250,000PSI [key-to-metals.com]. (Converted from the article's 1725 MPa datapoint.)
I've found references to steel having a yield strength in excess of 2000 MPa, but Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] claims that titanium alloys are harder.
With all that said, I cut ti with a hacksaw, and snips for sheet, on a regular basis. It's no problem. It's *much* harder to cut than gold
Re:Ad problem. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm surprised (Score:4, Informative)
To increase the temperature you need a material that won't oxide, react, etc at high temperatures. The best material is tungsten. However this does rapidly corrode. Hallogen lamps and energy saving light bulbs use this. The tungsten is heated to 2400C. At this temperature it has an efficency of almost 4%. However the tungsten corrodes very rapidly. Halogen lamps have the bulb bit made out of quartz, which makes the halogen air inside react with the tungsten that has corroded off, and pushes it back on to the tungsten. So the corroded tungsten is continually put back on.
Going above 2400C is not simple. Tungsten has a melting temperature of 3400C, but you would need to deal with the corroding at a fantastic rate. Also tungsten is fantastically expensive and rare.
Re:I'm surprised (Score:3, Informative)
Close, but not quite. The bulbs are made of quartz because it can withstand the heat much better than a thin glass envelope. The quartz has nothing to do with the tungsten redisposition. The tungsten redisposition is because of the reaction with the halide gas that the bulb is filled
Re:I'm surprised (Score:2)
Re:I'm surprised (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm surprised (Score:5, Informative)
Reach about the FFC Process for Titanium Extraction [cam.ac.uk].
Better processing available (Score:4, Funny)
Apples and oranges... (Score:5, Informative)
So yes, this saves money... but it needs to be done in a large scale, 1st. I don't know how they come up with a cost/lb estimate that they consider to be more than VERY ball park estimate... $3 could be $6.
Its substantial savings, but its not like we're going to be able to start planning our houses with titanium frames in a few years or anything. And that's assuming that demand doesn't keep skyrocketing above supply... in which case we could have the same price (or more!) regardless of how much it costs to produce titanium.
Tim
Re:Apples and oranges... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Apples and oranges... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Apples and oranges... (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's think of this from a business standpoint: patent the process. Produce titanium in small numbers to prevent market saturation. Charge the same amount as everyone else, but at 10% the production cost. I don't see the savings being passed to the consumer anytime soon.
Re:Apples and oranges... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well the patent holder would want to maximise profit, so will have to produce enough to make it worth while. So, this would increase supply at least somewhat and thus likely decrease prices. And it is very likely that the patent holder would just want to license the process to current companies instead of actually getting capital to start their own plant. So, they would have incentive to license the process to as many companies as possible. At which point it only takes one company to decide that it needs to increase production to increase market share in order to have an effect of lowering prices. Of course, there can always be anti competitive price fixing, but that is illegal and can't go on forever.
Re:Apples and oranges... (Score:3, Insightful)
Lower profit margin but more profit.
Re:Apples and oranges... (Score:5, Informative)
In addition to being expensive, titanium is NOT easy to work with.
Re:Apples and oranges... (Score:5, Informative)
Just as an illustration, welding titantium in a normal atmosphere will cause it to become brittle. You need an inert atmosphere (e.g. argon) at the weld point and on the cooling joint to protect it. Any iron or steel contamination will also screw things up.
Re:Apples and oranges... (Score:4, Informative)
You're right, you need a good supply of argon to keep hot titanium from forming oxides or nitrides with atmospheric gas. It's an amazing thing, nearly *all* of the non-aviation titanium welds I've seen were not done right, and they have either an amber tint (not good) or a blue tint (really not good), and often a little rainbow of colors somewhere inbetween. The one exception I've noted is the race car industry. They actually do it right, and lives depend on it, so it's a good thing. The aftermarket parts for cars though? Holy shit, that stuff is ALWAYS FUBAR, and if it were to serve a purpose like strut bars for race/street cars, I imagine they'd crack if they were actually used for a few good hours. The funny thing is that I'm sure they think those colors are pretty!
Anyway...
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Apples and oranges... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just wanted to add to all of the great stuff you said by also pointing out that titanium is also a pain to work with in pretty much every other way. It's tough to machine, it's also a bitch to use as sheet metal--it's springy and not as malleable as steel or aluminum at room temperature. You've often got to heat it signifigantly if you need to make tight bends... Plus, all of that is compounded by the alloys of titanium which are even harder to use and form than the pure stuff.
Re:Apples and oranges... (Score:3, Funny)
This quite possibly the most informative post I have ever read on Slashdot. Seriously.
Please endeavor to learn other areas of technology so you can continue to inform me.
Re:Apples and oranges... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Apples and oranges... (Score:4, Informative)
--Rob
Re:Apples and oranges... (Score:2)
Re:Apples and oranges... (Score:3, Interesting)
Titanium is the 9th most common element in the Earth's crust and is found everywhere, including the US. While the US presently imports titanium (from Canada and Australia, for example) domestic production could easily be increased.
Great for chainmaillers (Score:4, Interesting)
So, having cheaper working materials = excellent for people like me
Re:Great for chainmaillers (Score:2, Funny)
No, seriously. Who would buy titanium chainmail? Some pretty serious D&Ders in here...
Oh well, at least it'll drive down the price of the MacBook.
Re:Great for chainmaillers (Score:2)
Re:Great for chainmaillers (Score:2)
Doing some of those things makes armor come in really handy on occasion. I'm not a big fan of chain, though. It tends to bind at the shoulders if it's not done well. I perfered a chinese style breastplate and bracers w
Re:Great for chainmaillers (Score:2)
Your puny weapons cannot pierce my titanium exoskeleton!
Kneel before me!
Re:Great for chainmaillers (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Great for chainmaillers (Score:2)
Re:Great for chainmaillers (Score:2)
rj
Re:Great for chainmaillers (Score:3, Funny)
-matthew
Chainmail (Score:4, Interesting)
Just jeffin' ya. Sounds like an interesting hobby. Know anyone who makes swords? I've heard that the metallurgy that goes into a modern metal blade is quite impressive, and that modern swords -- despite being made almost entire by hobbyists -- are far superior to the swords of antiquity.
modern swords (Score:5, Interesting)
My brother knows one of these modern-day master swordsmakers. One of the new tricks is to use high quality braided cable as a starting material. You flux it or something, then heat and pound. Like starting out with a Damascus or samurai style laminated blade, but woven instead of folded. Sounded pretty cool to me.
Re:modern swords (Score:4, Interesting)
Yup, I helped a friend make small strips of that for use in knifemaking. It's relatively easy; all you need is a gas forge (he helped me make mine, there's not much to it actually), an anvil, borax, steel cable, a welding machine and some large forging pliers to hold the hot piece of metal while beating it with a hammer. Oh, and you need a decent hammer too; one with hardened faces; soft ones won't do.
The process is simple; you tie off one end of the cable with some wire, before the point where it starts to untangle. You then cut off the untangled part relatively close to the point where you tied it off. Then weld the end fixed, so it won't untangle again. Repeat the same process a bit down the cable; how far depends on how long a strip you want to create. You then fire up your gas forge, wait for it to heat up completely, and just put the rod in. Wait untill it glows the right shade of red, take it out of the fire, then either throw borax on it using a large salt-shaker type of thing, or just roll the rod into a large bowl of borax. This will form a layer of borax around the rod. Back into the forge, the borax will seep between the strands of the cable, eating away at the impurities contained within. Repeat this process a couple of times... actually, a lot of times... The borax will drip into your forge, and it will eventually eat through the hull, so you better use one with a decent ceramic coating to prevent or slow down this process. Anyway, after you've repeated this process enough times, it's time to start welding the cable into a proper strip.
Make sure you wear decent protection, because when you hit that cable with your hammer, borax might shoot out, and hot borax will leave wounds that will ooze puss for days when it hits your bare skin. Even if you don't care about a couple of scars and some temporary discomfort, at least be smart enough to wear eye protection. Great, let's get on with it. Take the rod out of the forge, it's best to work in pairs so one can hold it with the pliers while laying it on the anvil, while the other smashes away at it with the hammer. Start beating it at one end, and do a couple of centimeters at a time. At first your goal is to create a rod with a square cross section; once you have that, you repeat the process, this time flattening it into a strip. Every time the metal cools off (starts glowing dimmer), put it back in the forge, and when it's heated up enough again, repeat the process, but start where you left off, slowly working your way from one end of the rod to the other. You'll notice that the metal will warp under the blows of your hammer; this is perfectly normal. Just turn it around, and you can smash it straight again. First hammer it on four sides to a square cross section, when you've covered the whole rod, repeat but this time beating it only on two sides so you end up with a strip.
Eventually, you'll end up with a rudimentary strip of cable damascus a couple of millimeters thick. Flatten it with a belt sander or whatever you have at your disposal, cut it into a straight strip, and you have a nice piece of cable damascus for stock removal production of knives (meaning you file the shape of the knife out of the bare strip, leaving the edge about 1mm in thickness, heat treat it, then polish and sharpen it). Of course you don't have to go the stock removal route; if you're more inclined to actually forge your knife/sword out of the rod, then work towards the shape you want for your knife/sword instead of a straight strip, and finish it off by belt sanding it to its final shape, heat treating it, then polishing and sharpening it.
You can find lots of info on knife/sword forging online if you google around a bit, and there's tons of books written on the subject. I'm just lucky I have a couple of friends who inducted me into this obscure art, though I wish I had more time to actually finish the designs I started... ;)
For those interested in this kind of stuff, a good starting point might be the knife makers [bladeforums.com] forums on bladeforums [bladeforums.com].
Re:Great for chainmaillers (Score:5, Funny)
Whoo Hoo (Score:2)
Re:Whoo Hoo (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Whoo Hoo (Score:2)
Oh, cool... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh, cool... (Score:2)
rj
Steel Age (Score:5, Funny)
-Peter
Re:Steel Age (Score:2)
Well, it's not like we were using a good strategy in the first place. Do you realize how many villagers that takes?!
More use of Titanium in everyday applications? (Score:2)
I say... (Score:2)
Oblig. Response (Score:2, Funny)
Aluminium? (Score:2)
Re:Aluminium? (Score:2)
Re:Aluminium? (Score:5, Informative)
rj
Re:Aluminium? (Score:4, Informative)
This is why titanium is used in things like the turbine blades of jet engines, and the leading edges of supersonic aircraft.
About two years ago the folks at Oxford University developed a process for producing the metal from
its common ore more cheaply that the process commonly in use. I think it's now being tested
commercially at at least one company here in the U.S. I'ld bet that the MIT process is very
similar to the one developed at Oxford.
Titanium oxide is commonly used as a white pigment for paints.
Re:Aluminium? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Aluminium? (Score:3, Informative)
Meanwhile, aluminum has issues. At best it makes your soda taste yucky after a while. Maybe it contributes to Altzheimer's disease. If you cook tomatoes in an aluminum pan, you'll get holes in the pan.
Re:Aluminium? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, but there's no direct contact between the soda and the metal. The cans are lined with a thin coating of some sort. Otherwise the soda would indeed dissolve the can.
In case you're doubting, here's the experiment that showed me what's up: Wash two soda cans. Score the inside of one of the cans, just a tiny scratch going all the way around, to penetrate the protective coating. Then fill both cans with an acidic
Re:Aluminium? (Score:3, Interesting)
Steel was once used, but we had to switch to aluminum because Coke ate through the steel too fast.
Aluminum (Score:2)
The Sheffield and it's aluminum superstructure (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.hazegray.org/faq/smn6.htm#F7 [hazegray.org]
http://www.alfed.org.uk/templates/alfed/content.as p?PageId=111 [alfed.org.uk]
It is also worth noting that any metal can catch fire if you get it hot enough, even steel.
Fire (Score:2)
Re:Aluminium? (Score:5, Informative)
1. Insulation; titanium is less condutive of heat/electricity. This can be a benefit or detriment depending on the application.
2. Strength; the same amount of Ti/Al alloys to support a specific load can be made with a lighter weight of Ti. An equal volume of Ti is heavier than Al, though.
3. Fatigue life; titanium, like iron, has infinite fatigue life. Aluminum does not. What this means is you can make a spring from Ti but Al will fail if repeatedly stressed.
4. Corrosion; titanium is more corrosion resistant than Al because it oxidizes rapidly in contact with air
5. Social reasons; titanium has significantly more percieved value than Al, moreso than the material differences. Further Ti has a unique color as well.
Sometimes aluminum will still be better; in many applications the relative strength difference doesn't matter and thus a lighter equivalent volume of Al is advantageous. Also, the high conductivity of Al is a good thing in many situations.
The most common Ti alloy, Ti-6Al-4V, actually has 6% Al in it.
Awesome! (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a PDF presentation on the process:
http://web.mit.edu/dsadoway/www/MOE_Ti.pdf [mit.edu]
Re:Awesome! (Score:2)
Thanks.
Re:Awesome! (Score:3, Insightful)
One of my first jobs (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:One of my first jobs (Score:4, Informative)
I have little to no faith in this actually producing anything substantial within the next several years.
Why? I have read about this same guy pitching his process for the past several years, and my company has a file on him going back almost a decade; he's been saying his process will yield results 'soon' for far too long for me to readily believe him.
Last year, even, I read a presentation he gave, and it consisted of little more than a brief high-school chemistry explanation of electrolysis (which is all this is, same process that produces hydrogen and oxygen from water) and stating a hope that they will build an experimental cell soon. Apparently he's gotten that far, but 200 mg aren't going to help much to combat the currently sky-rocketing Ti prices.
And yes, they are very high right now. Half our work is focused on improving Ti recycling processes so that scrap can be used more widely; the rest of the work is biomedical applications where cost is not an issue.
The point is: Yes, if this works it could mean a much cheaper/environmentally friendly (I'm a little doubtful of this; yea, there won't be concentrated TiCl or Cl gas lying around, but it's an electrolytic process, it will use lots of electricity, and that will produce extra waste) process. This is a conceptually simple process; basically it requires experimentation to get the parameters right. He has spent very little time actually experimenting.
You know what this means? (Score:2, Funny)
Oh ok I'll take my tablets now...
For those that took 3.091 (Score:3, Informative)
For those that aren't familiar with MIT's most pimp chem prof you can enjoy a full semester of his lectures right here: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Materials-Science-and-E
titanium anti-corrosion coating (Score:3, Funny)
Scotty? (Score:3, Funny)
like aluminum? (Score:2)
Re:like aluminum? (Score:3, Informative)
Inexpensive Russian Titanium.. (Score:5, Informative)
It is much much cheaper in Russia, as it is basically produced as a side effect of steel production there due to the different ores available.
Most significant titanium users source their titanium from Russia, and there is little interest in other sources as Russia just has the right ores anyway.
Oh well, good try though.
Re:Inexpensive Russian Titanium.. (Score:3, Informative)
On the tangent a bit, the current hungarian PM owns a lot of those bauxit mines - they've been used as a toxic dump since the last decade or so. Shady dealings.
Re:Inexpensive Russian Titanium.. (Score:3, Insightful)
> steel production there due to the different ores available.
The cost of the ore is a minor part of the cost of production of titanium metal.
> Most significant titanium users source their titanium from Russia, and there is little
> interest in other sources as Russia just has the right ores anyway.
More likely it's th lack of pollution controls.
All a matter of perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
What business people read:
"Using technology developed at MIT, 4-person startup Avanti Metal hopes to increase the profit of producing Titanium by $37 a pound!"
Yet another non-answer to a non-problem (Score:3, Informative)
The cost of producing Titanium isnt even the 5th most prominent reason that it's not used more. Here's a few more significant reasons:
given the choice of using steel or aluminum, versus using titanium at 100x the cost, 10x the likelyhood of the part breaking if touched by the wrong stuff, most engineers will go with anything but titanium.
Re:Yet another non-answer to a non-problem (Score:3, Insightful)
A titanium part that is built
WOO HOO! (Score:5, Funny)
Not exactly (Score:2)
It's win/win. A titanium car will get better gas milage
Re:Not exactly (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not exactly (Score:2, Informative)
Bought a titanium bike frame made by Teledyne in '74. They used the same facilities to build the bike that they had developed for making Space Shuttle bits. Nobody else has yet made a titanium bike quite like this one because Teledyne was able to make everything, such as tubing and fork crowns, custom in house, without relying on purchasing parts. I miss that bike. Traded it for a steel Cinelli. Took 28 seconds o
Re:Not exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
So why don't we make cars out of cotton wool or balsa wood?
You want crumple zones, yes, but surrounding a stiff inner structure. That's why doors have stiff cross-beams in them, race cars have roll cages, etc. No titanium for the crumple zones, sure, but you want it for the roll cage.
Re:Not exactly (Score:2)
Steel works well for buildings, I'm not sure that would be a big market for the cheap Ti.
Re:Not exactly (Score:2)
Re:Not exactly (Score:2)
Re:Investments (Score:2)
Re:1,700 degrees Celsius (Score:2)
Re:1,700 degrees Celsius (Score:2)
The Washington Monument was capped with a piece of aluminum to show how wealthy the United States was--at the time, aluminum was more expensive than gold.
Re:1,700 degrees Celsius (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunatley, the world market for radioactive titanium is rather small.
You will need some sort of high temperature heat exchanger that will not, itself, become radioactive. I don't think water will do. Actually, you may have trouble just running the reactor that hot. I think you will need a gaseous core reactor.
http://gif.inel.gov/roadmap/pdfs/non-classical_rea ctor_systems.pdf [inel.gov]
Th
Re:Where do you find these metals (or ores)? (Score:3, Insightful)