fusion is not on the horizon
https://www.businessinsider.com/helion-energy-fusion-company...
> A limitation of this work is that the resulting de-oxygenated titanium contains yttrium, up to 1% by mass; yttrium can influence the mechanical and chemical properties of titanium alloy. After solving the yttrium contamination problem…
So the process removes the oxygen but then adds yttrium to the metal in significant amounts. That’s not quite the ultra pure titanium I was promised in the headline.
As always, I hope someone figures out the rest of the problem space. As-is, this looks like trading one problem for another.
Presumably when you melt the titanium the yttrium doesn't react, whereas the oxygen dissolved in the titanium alloy at room temperature will form titanium dioxide when it's heated (if I'm reading correctly). So maybe you could "just" separate the molten metal by density afterwards? I'm not sure this would work though. For one, you'd need to avoid re-introducing oxygen contamination, but I guess you could do it under a vacuum (yes "just" spin the molten metal at high speed in a vacuum)?
This would seem to me to beg the question of why not just grind up the titanium in a vacuum to remove the oxygen and then melt it down, so I might be missing something here.
Yttrium: 28.9 USD/kg is 2890 USD/mt
So the 1% Yttrium might be financially reasonable (assuming extra demand can be met). Prices from metal.com
I’m shocked that yttrium is dearer than smelted titanium.
I was shocked at how cheap Yttrium is (I searched for pricing because I thought the 1% might be too expensive). Now I want to buy some...
Every choice trades one problem for another. At a minimum, the new problem is the cost in resources - time, money, personal energy (and in business, usually reputation risk and political capital) - but usually the cost is much more than that, especially when looking at alternative technical solutions. In advice to clients I always present the options as the minimum trade-off (it's my job to minimize it).
More generally, the question is, which scenario of outcomes do you want? It could be the scenario with 1% yttrium is far better than the one with oxygen, or that the ytrrium scenario has a very different set of costs and benefits which make it valuable for certain needs that the oxygen scenario doesn't fulfill. It could be that methods for removing yttrium are already mature and only need to be applied to this case.
But especially in this case, the report is about research & development. If there were no more problems to solve then it wouldn't be R&D. It's really self-defeating to criticize progress in R&D because some problems remain. 'We scored a goal, but that's just trading one problem for another - the other team has the ball!'
The problem in this case is that the headline claimed “ultra pure titanium” and the closing paragraph had a tiny oh-by-the-way mention that the process contaminates the titanium with yttrium.
Which is to say, makes it anything but ultra pure. :)
> It could be that methods for removing yttrium are already mature and only need to be applied to this case.
Sorry but no. That’s specially a problem they highlighted as needing a solution.
The reason? Titanium sucks to work with.
Machinists hate it, equipment hates it, cutting tools hate it, and it makes shavings that can burn hot enough to go right through equipment and concrete floors. That's what makes titanium parts so expensive, not just the material cost alone. It absolutely has properties that make it a perfect material for specific situations, but making it cheaper to buy definitely won't make titanium a common every day thing.
So - enjoy the science! Give a round of applause for the cool new method this team figured out. And then go back to appreciating how wild it is that titanium parts can even be produced at all, because holy smokes is it a pain in the rear in almost every way...
And I wouldn't overstate the machining difficulty. Sure, it's a pain in the rear, and expensive, but can be done on regular machines with the right tools, techniques, and processes. I've made a couple of titanium parts myself.
I used to have a magnesium campfire starter. It was a little ingot of magnesium, with a long flint, embedded along one side.
You used your knife to shave some magnesium, then the flint, to set it ablaze.
Worked a treat.
westurner•4d ago
"Direct production of low-oxygen-concentration titanium from molten titanium" (2024) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49085-4
Animats•5h ago
more_corn•5h ago
metalman•3h ago
from wiki: Small amounts of yttrium (0.1 to 0.2%) have been used to reduce the grain sizes of chromium, molybdenum, titanium, and zirconium.[81] Yttrium is used to increase the strength of aluminium and magnesium alloys.[15] The addition of yttrium to alloys generally improves workability, adds resistance to high-temperature recrystallization, and significantly enhances resistance to high-temperature oxidation (see graphite nodule discussion below).[68]
Yttrium can be used to deoxidize vanadium and other non-ferrous metals.[15] Yttria stabilizes the cubic form of zirconia in jewelry.[82]
Yttrium has been studied as a nodulizer in ductile cast iron, forming the graphite into compact nodules instead of flakes to increase ductility and fatigue resistance.[15] Having a high melting point, yttrium oxide is used in some ceramic and glass to impart shock resistance and low thermal expansion properties.[15] Those same properties make such glass useful in camera lenses.[51]
Medical
westurner•4h ago
What is the most efficient and sustainable alternative to yttrium for removing oxygen from titanium?
process(TiO2, …) => Ti, …
westurner•3h ago
> For primary titanium production (from ore): Molten Salt Electrolysis (Direct Electrochemical Deoxygenation, FFC Cambridge, OS processes, etc.) and calciothermic reduction in molten salts
> They aim to [sic.] revolutionize titanium production by moving away from the energy-intensive and environmentally impactful Kroll process, directly reducing TiO 2 and offering the potential for closed-loop systems.
> For recycling titanium scrap and deep deoxidation: Hydrogen plasma arc melting and calcium-based deoxidation techniques (especially electrochemical calcium generation) are highly promising. Hydrogen offers extreme cleanliness, while calcium offers potent deoxidizing power.
...
> Magnesium Hydride Reduction (e.g., University of Utah's reactor)
> Solid-State Reduction (e.g., Metalysis process)
Are there more efficient, sustainable methods of titanium production?
Also, TIL Ti is a catalyst for CNT carbon nanotube production; and, alloying CNTs with Ti leaves vacancies.
mmooss•2h ago
What human?
digdugdirk•2h ago
Its cool, and it has plenty of applications where it is the only choice. But those applications already use it, and lowering the material cost isn't going to make more designers decide to just start using it on a whim.
(PS - This could be more useful if titanium 3d printers start becoming more accessible. But again, that's a low volume manufacturing process so the material costs still don't play much into final part cost.)