page_title: Titanium
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Titanium / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Titamschwamm, wie er bei der Herstellung nach dem Kroll-Prozess anfällt.
context_page_description: Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. It is a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength. Titanium is resistant to corrosion in sea water, aqua regia, and chlorine.
  Titanium was discovered in Cornwall, Great Britain, by William Gregor in 1791 and was named by Martin Heinrich Klaproth after the Titans of Greek mythology. The element occurs within a number of mineral deposits, principally rutile and ilmenite, which are widely distributed in the Earth's crust and lithosphere; it is found in almost all living things, as well as bodies of water, rocks, and soils. The metal is extracted from its principal mineral ores by the Kroll and Hunter processes. The most common compound, titanium dioxide, is a popular photocatalyst and is used in the manufacture of white pigments. Other compounds include titanium tetrachloride, a component of smoke screens and catalysts; and titanium trichloride, which is used as a catalyst in the production of polypropylene.
context_section_description: Titanium was discovered in 1791 by the clergyman and amateur geologist William Gregor as an inclusion of a mineral in Cornwall, Great Britain. Gregor recognized the presence of a new element in ilmenite when he found black sand by a stream and noticed the sand was attracted by a magnet. Analyzing the sand, he determined the presence of two metal oxides: iron oxide (explaining the attraction to the magnet) and 45.25% of a white metallic oxide he could not identify. Realizing that the unidentified oxide contained a metal that did not match any known element, Gregor reported his findings to the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall and in the German science journal Crell's Annalen.
  Around the same time, Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein produced a similar substance, but could not identify it. The oxide was independently rediscovered in 1795 by Prussian chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth in rutile from Boinik (the German name of Bajmócska), a village in Hungary (now Bojničky in Slovakia). Klaproth found that it contained a new element and named it for the Titans of Greek mythology. After hearing about Gregor's earlier discovery, he obtained a sample of manaccanite and confirmed that it contained titanium.
  The currently known processes for extracting titanium from its various ores are laborious and costly; it is not possible to reduce the ore by heating with carbon (as in iron smelting) because titanium combines with the carbon to produce titanium carbide. Pure metallic titanium (99.9%) was first prepared in 1910 by Matthew A. Hunter at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute by heating TiCl₄ with sodium at 700–800 °C under great pressure in a batch process known as the Hunter process. Titanium metal was not used outside the laboratory until 1932 when William Justin Kroll proved that it can be produced by reducing titanium tetrachloride (TiCl₄) with calcium. Eight years later he refined this process with magnesium and even sodium in what became known as the Kroll process. Although research continues into more efficient and cheaper processes (e.g., FFC Cambridge, Armstrong), the Kroll process is still used for commercial production.
  Titanium of very high purity was made in small quantities when Anton Eduard van Arkel and Jan Hendrik de Boer discovered the iodide, or crystal bar, process in 1925, by reacting with iodine and decomposing the formed vapours over a hot filament to pure metal.
  In the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union pioneered the use of titanium in military and submarine applications (Alfa class and Mike class) as part of programs related to the Cold War. Starting in the early 1950s, titanium came into use extensively in military aviation, particularly in high-performance jets, starting with aircraft such as the F-100 Super Sabre and Lockheed A-12 and SR-71.
  Recognizing the strategic importance of titanium, the U.S. Department of Defense supported early efforts of commercialization.
  Throughout the period of the Cold War, titanium was considered a strategic material by the U.S. government, and a large stockpile of titanium sponge was maintained by the Defense National Stockpile Center, which was finally depleted in the 2000s. According to 2006 data, the world's largest producer, Russian-based VSMPO-AVISMA, was estimated to account for about 29% of the world market share. As of 2015, titanium sponge metal was produced in seven countries: China, Japan, Russia, Kazakhstan, the US, Ukraine, and India. (in order of output).
  In 2006, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded $5.7 million to a two-company consortium to develop a new process for making titanium metal powder. Under heat and pressure, the powder can be used to create strong, lightweight items ranging from armour plating to components for the aerospace, transport, and chemical processing industries.
caption: Titanium sponge, made by the Kroll process
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