Titanium: Metal of gods

Not many strategic metals have more than four industry associations devoted to them. But titanium does.

But perhaps this isn’t too surprising for the fourth-most abundant metallic element and ninth-most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, or for a metal with such a multiplicity of uses.

On the other hand, it is a little curious, since only 5 percent of all mined and synthetic titanium minerals are actually used to make titanium metal, with the remaining 95 percent used to manufacture titanium dioxide (TiO2).

In this article, we will look only at titanium metal, leaving the subject of titanium dioxide to a future piece.

So, what is it with titanium that makes it so special?

It seems particularly appropriate that titanium (before it was so named) should originally have been discovered by a man of God—Reverend William Gregor—in Cornwall, England, back in 1790. It wasn’t until five years later, however, that the metal was actually named titanium, after the Titans, by the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth.

One hundred years later, in 1910, American chemist Matthew A. Hunter succeeded in obtaining titanium metal from one of its ores; consequently, he had the first industrial process to extract the metal named after him.

That the metal should be named after the Titans is particularly apt, to a degree that would probably have astounded Professor Klaproth.

By any measure, this is quite an exceptional combination of characteristics for one single metal. But as an oxide, too, titanium possesses some very special characteristics; hence the fact that some 95 percent of the titanium mined is turned into TiO2. For starters, titanium dioxide makes the brightest of the white pigments. In addition, TiO2 has not only an extremely high refractive index, but as a powder, it is also a highly effective opacifier, so it is used in everything from paints and paper to plastics, pills, inks and more.

Particularly in the U.S., one of the largest consumers of titanium metal is the aerospace industry, both commercial and defense. The U.S. Geological Survey [USGS] estimates that in 2009, some 76 percent of the metal was used in «aerospace applications.” Of the remaining 24 per cent, use was made of it in “armor, chemical processing, marine, medical, power generation and sporting goods.” In fact, it was only after 1965 that titanium started to be used anywhere other than in the aerospace industry, and over the past 50 years, both the commercial aerospace and defense industries have increased their use of titanium dramatically.

Since the aerospace industry is a prime consumer of titanium, how it fares inevitably affects how the metal does. Understandably, the last couple of years haven’t been easy for either.

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