Tetsuya Uda, Toru H. Okabe and Yoshio Waseda
Research Center for Metallurgical Process Engineering, Institute for Advanced Materials Processing,Tohoku University, Sendai, 980-8577
Instead of the conventional metallic reductant, halide salt has been tested as a reductant for producing titanium powder directly from TiCl4. Using various thermodynamic data, DyCl2 was found to be suitable for the halidothermic reduction of TiCl4. When TiCl4 was fed into DyCl2 single salt or DyCl2 containing molten salts at 1073 K, fine titanium powder of several ten micron meters in diameter was obtained. In contrast to the sponge titanium produced by the conventional Kroll process, the present new process using halidothermic reduction appears to hold promise in reducing difficulties by making titanium powder without precipitation of sponge titanium on the metallic container. From the thermodynamic point of view, the resultant DyCl3 can be reduced to DyCl2 by magnesium. These particular features enable us to give possibility of the production of titanium powder directly from TiCl4 as well as the development of a new continuous titanium reduction process by adding reaction mediator in the Kroll process.
(Received April 6, 1998; In Final Form June 29, 1998)
titanium, Kroll process, metallothermic reduction, electrochemistry, continuous process, powder production, rare earth chlorides, dysprosium chloride
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