Patent ID: 7776128

Claim:
A method comprising: evacuating all gases from a reaction zone of an electric-arc furnace, wherein the reaction zone has a temperature, and wherein all the gases are evacuated until the pressure in the reaction zone falls below the lesser of 10 −2 mm of mercury and a pressure that is sufficiently low to vaporize all of a titanium reducing agent later added to the reaction zone at the temperature of the reaction zone, wherein the titanium reducing agent has a boiling point, and wherein the temperature of the reaction zone is between the boiling point of the titanium reducing agent and the melting point of metallic titanium; adding the titanium reducing agent to the reaction zone; increasing the temperature of the reaction zone above the boiling point of the titanium reducing agent; adding titanium tetrachloride to the reaction zone; forming metallic titanium by reducing the titanium tetrachloride in the reaction zone, wherein the forming the metallic titanium by reducing forms nanoparticles of titanium; melting the metallic titanium in the reaction zone as the metallic titanium is formed; and extracting metallic titanium that has solidified in the electric-arc furnace beneath the melted metallic titanium.