The invention is a microwave gun and arc plasma torch furnace used to refine titanium, Ti, from titanium dioxide, TiO.sub.2, powder. The furnace includes high frequency microwave emitters that create a high temperature zone strongly vibrating the titanium dioxide powder, TiO.sub.2, and lengthening and weakening the valence bonds in the titanium dioxide powder, TiO.sub.2, titanium, Ti, and oxygen, O, atoms. The furnace also uses nitrogen arc plasma torch generators to generate a N.sup.+ plasma to completely disassociate the titanium, Ti, and oxygen, O, atoms into titanium ions, Ti.sup.+ and oxygen ions, O.sup., and permitting the formation of nitrogen dioxide, NO.sub.2, and melted titanium, Ti.

Provided is a method for producing a titanium-containing electrodeposit, which can achieve good refinement by an electrodeposition without using the Kroll method. A method for producing a titanium-containing electrodeposit, including an electrodeposition step of electrodepositing a titanium-containing electrodeposit in a chloride bath, the chloride bath being a molten salt, using an anode including a TiAlO conductive material containing titanium, aluminum, and oxygen, and a cathode, wherein, in the electrodeposition step, a current density of the cathode is in a range of 0.3 A/cm.sup.2 or more and 2.0 A/cm.sup.2 or less, and wherein the chloride bath contains 1 mol % or more of a titanium subchloride.

This invention relates broadly to the production of titanium alloys by electrolytic reduction processes, and is concerned in one or more aspects with the preparation of a feedstock for such processes. In other aspects, the invention relates to a novel synthetic rutile (SR) product and to methods of producing titanium alloy from titaniferous material.

A method for preparing an article of a base metal alloyed with an alloying element includes the steps of preparing a compound mixture by the steps of providing a chemically reducible nonmetallic base-metal precursor compound of a base metal, providing a chemically reducible nonmetallic alloying-element precursor compound of an alloying element, and thereafter mixing the base-metal precursor compound and the alloying-element precursor compound to form a compound mixture. The compound mixture is thereafter reduced to a metallic alloy, without melting the metallic alloy. The step of preparing or the step of chemically reducing includes the step of adding an other additive constituent. The metallic alloy is thereafter consolidated to produce a consolidated metallic article, without melting the metallic alloy and without melting the consolidated metallic article.

Disclosed herein is a novel approach to the chemical synthesis of titanium metal from a titanium oxide source material, such as a mineral comprising titanium. In the approach described herein, a titanium oxide source is reacted with Mg vapor to extract a pure Ti metal. The method disclosed herein is more scalable, cheaper, faster, and safer than prior art methods.

A process for recovering metal from a process material comprising the metal and a component that is more volatile than the metal, which process comprises: transporting the process material in a retort provided in a furnace, the retort being operated under vacuum and at a temperature sufficient to cause sublimation of the component from the process material thereby producing purified metal; depositing the component that has been sublimed on a cool surface; removing purified metal from the retort; and removing deposited component from the cool surface.

This invention relates broadly to the production of titanium alloys by electrolytic reduction processes, and is concerned in one or more aspects with the preparation of a feedstock for such processes. In other aspects, the invention relates to a novel synthetic rutile (SR) product and to methods of producing titanium alloy from titaniferous material.

A method of producing metallic powder for use in the manufacture of a capacitor comprises the step of reducing a non-metallic compound to metal in contact with a molten salt. The salt comprises, for at least a portion of the process, a dopant element that acts as a sinter retardant in the metal. In preferred examples, the metallic powder is Ta or Nb powder produced by the reduction of a Ta or Nb oxide and the dopant is boron, nitrogen, or phosphorous.