With excellent hardness, low density, strong corrosion resistance, high melting point, titanium is extensively applied in our daily life and industries such as aviation, aerospace, machine-building, etc.
A researcher proposed a method for the industrial production of titanium, which is energy-consuming and expensive, but titanium production has still been dependent on this process, where the titanium chloride is reduced with metallic magnesium. There were some other methods, but they only achieved successes in the laboratory. The issues of energy consumption, equipment, environment, cost reduction, raw materials supply, etc. made its industrialization difficult.
An Hyo Song, a researcher at the General Assay Office, has investigated the direct electrolysis of CaTiO3 in molten salts, with the aim of reducing the electrolysis time and of improving the electrolysis efficiency in the production of titanium by electrolysis, and compared it with the direct electrolysis of titanium dioxide.
After mixing TiO2 and CaO well in a ball mill, he prepared porous CaTiO3 by sintering the mixture at 1 100℃ for 2 hours. He used this compound as cathode, the graphite as anode and the molten CaCl2-NaCl as electrolyte for electrolysis, which was performed at 800℃ and the constant-voltage of 3.2V in dry argon atmosphere.
The CaTiO3 was electrolyzed directly to Ti2O3 initially. Oxygen ions were removed gradually with the increase of electrolysis time, and Ti3O and Ti were prepared in 50h. The time of electrolysis was reduced to 80% of the time for reduction of TiO2 alone.
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