Patent ID: 7901483

Claim:
A process for producing titanium sponge in a stepwise operation within a closed cell system, comprising the steps of: a) providing a salt mixture of two or more salts that includes at least magnesium chloride and sodium chloride; b) heating said salt mixture to a molten state; c) electrolytically decomposing said molten salt mixture into molten metallic layers which have a lower specific gravity than said molten salt mixture and float upon said molten salt mixture layer; and d) introducing gaseous titanium tetrachloride from above said decomposed layers which allows the gaseous titanium tetrachloride to react with vapor given off from said molten metallic layers and also allows the gaseous titanium tetrachloride to react directly with the highest molten metallic layer forming titanium sponge and a salt, whereby the molten metallic layer is at first comprised of sodium until the reaction of titanium tetrachloride with sodium depletes the sodium and exposes a second metallic layer of magnesium to reaction with titanium tetrachloride.