Why Is Titanium So Expensive?

We all know that titanium is expensive, but why is it expensive? The raw materials are expensive, that is, sponge titanium is expensive. Speaking of titanium and titanium alloys, we have to mention sponge titanium. Sponge titanium is the raw material for producing titanium and titanium alloys. Without sponge titanium, there would be no titanium and titanium alloys.

Sponge titanium mainly comes from two kinds of minerals:

1) Rutile is a yellow to reddish brown mineral, the main component of which is TiO2, and it also contains a certain amount of iron, niobium and tantalum.

2) Ilmenite, the theoretical molecular formula is FeTi03, of which the theoretical content of TiO2 is 52.63%. Ilmenite in nature can be regarded as a solid solution composed of FeO-TiO2 and other impurity oxides.

In 1940, Luxembourg scientist W.J.Kroll used magnesium to reduce TiCl4 to produce pure titanium. Since then, magnesium reduction method (also known as Kroll method) and sodium reduction method (also known as Hunter method) have become the main industrial methods for producing sponge titanium. Please note that the production here is "sponge titanium" also called "porous titanium". The production process of titanium sponge mainly includes the following steps: ilmenite - mining - ore dressing - titanium concentrate - enrichment - titanium-rich material - chlorination - crude TiC1 - refining - pure TiC1 - magnesium reduction - crushing - classification - mixing - titanium sponge.

The other four processes below are key processes.

1) Chlorination process: This is the main step in the production of titanium tetrachloride. Specific methods include boiling chlorination, molten salt chlorination and vertical furnace chlorination. Boiling chlorination is the most commonly used method at present. Through the action of high temperature and chlorine gas, titanium-rich material reacts with solid carbonaceous reducing agent to produce titanium tetrachloride. Molten salt chlorination and vertical furnace chlorination use molten salt medium and vertical chlorination furnace for chlorination reaction respectively.

2) Refining process: Titanium tetrachloride needs to be refined and purified to remove high-boiling point and low-boiling point impurities. Commonly used refining methods include distillation and chemical methods. The distillation method uses an efficient floating valve distillation tower, while the chemical method uses aluminum powder to remove vanadium and other methods.

3) Reduction-distillation process: Refined titanium tetrachloride reacts with molten magnesium metal at high temperature to generate sponge-like titanium metal and molten magnesium chloride. Then, the magnesium chloride and excess magnesium in the titanium sponge are removed by vacuum distillation to obtain pure titanium.

4) Electrolytic magnesium process: Electrolytic magnesium is one of the key steps in the production of titanium sponge. Multipolar electrolytic cells and partitionless magnesium electrolytic cells are widely used abroad, while domestic technology is relatively backward, resulting in high power consumption and chlorine consumption. In recent years, new domestic factories have gradually adopted advanced large-scale electrolytic cells, which has improved production technology and reduced costs.

The price of raw material titanium sponge reached US$2,700/ton in 2005 and 2006. Later, with the breakthrough of technical bottlenecks in raw materials, chlorination, refining and electrolysis of titanium sponge production. Around 2017, the price of titanium sponge was adjusted to US$1,100/ton. Until 2024, the price of titanium sponge showed a trend of "opening high and going low". The price of titanium sponge was high at the beginning of the year, but with changes in market supply and demand, the price gradually fell. So far, the price of titanium sponge has fallen by about $7,000/ton, reaching a new historical low.

Even at its lowest point, the price of titanium sponge is still $6/kg. Because titanium sponge is expensive, titanium and titanium alloys are expensive. The production and refining process of titanium sponge is very complicated. The production process also requires high-temperature, high-energy-consuming equipment and a vacuum environment. The increase in energy costs also directly affects its high price. This makes the price of titanium alloys remain high.

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