Solid-Solid Phase Transformation During the Reduction of Titanium Dioxide (Anatase) to Produce High-Grade Titanium Powder

Abstract

Production of titanium is challenging and expensive due to the energy energy-intensive and time-consuming processes used at present. Current commercial production method reduces titanium tetrachloride with magnesium or sodium to produce titanium metal. Several researchers have attempted electro-deposition of titanium from ionic solutions but have faced difficulties in eliminating multivalent titanium ions and highly reactive dendrite products. In this paper, we report, for the first time, the solid-solid phase transformation of titanium dioxide with calcium metal, under suitable conditions, to form solid titanium metal powder (>98% pure) without any oxygen impurity. On phase characterisation, it was found that homogeneous alpha-titanium was produced. The paper also includes the results and interpretations obtained using quantitative analysis, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX) and phase diagram. The process is simple, green, rapid and cheap compared to the existing methods.