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A Cleaner, Cheaper Route to Titanium
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."
http://www.techreview.com/printer_friendly_article .aspx?id=16963
Yeah, the ad... not very helpful.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
No one found this earlier. The Hall-Heroult Process for aluminium is basically the same,and has been known for well over a century.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
Nobody uses the Titanium. Servers just use a MD Pteron if they want price-performance. And Onroe is just around the corner. Even cheaper Titaniums aren't worth the bother. Ntel can't drop the product line as a matter of face, but consumers just aren't buying it.
I always love articles like this when they compare the price of MAKING something with the price of SELLING something. Titanium's sold on a market sort of like oil... prices fluctuate based on demand more than they do based on the cost of production.... if the price of titanium is $40 this year, and was half as much last year... last year it was $20, and I'm SURE that people were making a profit selling that, so it was produced for probably a maximum of $15, probably more like $10/lb.
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
Sweet! I'm sure this will likely have a significantly higher impact on pretty much all products as is, but this will affect me in a slightly different way. I'm one of the few that make chainmail as a hobby. Titanium chainmail is significantly lighter, rusts less, etc, etc. Significantly better for metalcraft than stainless steel or galvanized steel or anything like that in my opinion.
:}
So, having cheaper working materials = excellent for people like me
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
Thank God! I thought the Steel Age was never going to end!
-Peter
Titanium foil hats HERE WE COME!
I took Sadoway's class last year. Awesome guy -- this is right up his alley (making things more environmentally friendly).
Here's a PDF presentation on the process:
http://web.mit.edu/dsadoway/www/MOE_Ti.pdf
This
I worked at a titanium manufacturing plant where I analyzed samples for nitrogen contamination. Even though it was a pretty low level repetitive job, I still felt like a scientist working in a lab wearing a lab coat and the head chemist was a guy from Sweden named Jurgen (?sp). I also remember that the titanium tetrachloride was so volatile that just a spoonfull released into the atmosphere would create a huge white cloud and the fire department would show up and management would have to fill out an incident report. Good memories, except for the time I got hydrofluoric acid on my fingers, very painfull, and of course when I accidently breathed in some vapors and had frequent nosebleeds for several years afterwards.
All generalities are dangerous except ones that start with "All
Twice as strong vs 1.6 times as heavy, higher melting point, better resistance to corrosion and fatigue.
rj
Not to be pedantic or anything, but you would actually fare worse in a car wreck in a Titanium car, as it wouldn't give as readily as steel. The more time the impact lasts, the less force the passengers experience. So in a wreck between a titanium Geo Metro and a steel Geo Metro, the passengers of the titanium car could be extracted faster but would be more likely to die. There are more considerations to engineering than just weight and efficiency. If something cant get you from point A to point B as safely as the less-efficient alternative, than the less-efficient alternative bears at least some looking into.
SRSLY.
Not to be pedantic or anything, but you would actually fare worse in a car wreck in a Titanium car, as it wouldn't give as readily as steel.
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.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
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.
And it maintains it's strength at high temperatures. Steel tends to weaken quite a bit as it gets hot.
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.
Several reasons:
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.
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.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
Of course they are carefully looking at the AMERICAN price for titanium production..
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.
Actually that durability can be one of the biggest problems with Titanium rings, trauma sheers can't cut them so if you have any kind of severe sweeling problem there's a good chance of digit loss because the ER won't be able to remove the ring. That and the fact that my father gave me his ring are the reason I didn't get a titanium one. (He hadn't worn his in 20 years due to working with the machining industry and seeing several people lose their hands in machines due to wedding bands).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Thats incorrect. Any good steel shear, including the wiss tinsnips in my tool drawer, will cut a titanium ring apart easily. Titanium may have a better strength to weight ratio than steel, but steel is much harder at simular or even smaller actual size and as such will easily shear titanium.