TiRO – The Development of a new process to Produce Titanium
CSIRO through the Light Metals Flagship is funding a $2.2M per annum project to develop a new method to produce Titanium metal. The ultimate aim is to halve the cost of manufactured Ti parts. Cost savings are envisioned in two major ways;
1. replacing the existing commercial Kroll process which is a batch process with a cheaper continuous process based on fluidised bed technology, and,
2. producing a powder suitable for powder metallurgy thus circumventing a number of costly refining processes currently required.
There are two major process steps in the TiRO process. The first step is the reduction of TiCl4 with Mg in a fluidised bed to form fine Ti particles dispersed in MgCl2 pellets. The second step is separating the Ti from the MgCl2. A laboratory scale fluidised bed has been built and operated continuously for up to 60 h. The separation stage is under development. In this paper the major design issues and operating parameters of the fluidised bed reactor will be discussed.