The Low Cost Production of Titanium Alloy Powder Directly from Ore

Because of a unique combination of properties, titanium alloys play a key role in DoD systems.  One of the key issues that is preventing more widespread use of Ti-alloys is the cost and cycle time of the Kroll process followed by multiple steps to convert to powders or products.  A viable approach of combined electrochemical and chemical processing has demonstrated in a Phase I program that low cost titanium alloy powder can be produced from titanium intermediate compounds.  This Phase II program proposes to refine the processing and produce powdered alloys in sufficient quantity that consolidated and/or melted product can be evaluated for mechanical performance and detail a business case for the direct formation of alloy powder.  The process includes new technology to produce the intermediate titanium compound at low cost providing the potential to produce Ti-alloy powder for the approximate cost of Kroll sponge.  Multipound quantities of the low cost powder will be produced for the performances evaluations.   BENEFITS: All future aerospace systems require titanium alloys as well as DoD vehicles, armor, commercial aircraft, and the low cost Ti-alloy powder can open a plethora of new markets including transportation.