An amateur geologist named William Gregor discovered Titanium in the year 1791 from Mannacan in Cornwall, England.
He found black and magnetic sand which looked similar to the gunpowder. It was ilmenite – a mixture consisting of oxides of Titanium and Iron.
He studied the sand and found that Magnetite (Fe2O3) was the major constituent, and there was a little portion of a new element’s impure oxide.
He called the new element as “reddish brown calx.”
It turned purple when reduced with Tin, Iron or Zinc and turned yellow when reacted with Sulfuric acid.
He reported to the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall that he was dealing with new metal and called the element as Menachanite in honor of Mannacan.
In the year 1795, a German chemist Martin Klaproth discovered a new element and named it Titanium.
He named it after Titans, Earth Goddess’s sons in Greek Mythology.
He discovered the element in Schörl – a form of rutile, a mineral from Boinik region of Hungary.
Gregor’s calx and rutile both were red. It was in 1797, Klaproth realized that rutile and calx of Gregor are same.
He also realized that Titanium and Menachanite are same, and Gregor is the actual discoverer of the element.
The purification process of Titanium proved to be difficult than discovering it.
It took almost 119 years to get 99.9% pure Titanium. It was isolated by Matthew Hunter, a metallurgist in the year 1910 at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Schenectady, New York.
He heated Sodium and Titanium Tetrachloride to at 700 to 800o C in extremely high pressure using a process called Batch Process or Hunter Process.
Even when Titanium was purified, it was strictly limited to laboratory use only.
In 1932, William Justin Kroll reduced Titanium Tetrachloride using Calcium, and from then, Titanium’s commercial usage started.
In 1936, Kroll refined the process and replaced Calcium with Magnesium. This led to the production of Titanium for commercial purpose.
Thanks to the contribution of Kroll, the once-hard-to-be-purified element’s production reached 3 tons a year by 1948!
However, small quantities of Titanium (very high purity) were produced by Anton Eduard van Arkel and Jan Hendrik de Boer by using Iodide or Crystal Bar Process.
By 1950s and 1960s, Soviet Union started using Titanium in military aviation and other military equipment related to jets, etc. The USA soon followed suit.
As of 2015, six countries commercially produce Titanium which is – China, Japan, Russia, Kazakhstan, the US, Ukraine, and India (order of output of Titanium).
Titanium belongs to d block, group 4, period 4.
It is metallic white, has low density, but has a high strength to weight ratio.
It is ductile and lustrous, has a high melting point which makes it a refractory metal (highly resistant to wear and heat).
It is paramagnetic, which means, it is weakly attracted to the externally applied magnetic field and has low thermal and electrical conductivity.
Titanium, which is used for commercial purposes, is less dense but strong. Titanium is 60% denser than Aluminum, but it is two times stronger than Aluminum. However, if heated to over 430o C, it loses its strength.
Just like Aluminum and Magnesium, it oxidizes as soon as it is exposed to air.
It reacts with Oxygen and forms Titanium Oxide. It doesn’t readily react with water or air as it forms an oxide layer (as soon as it comes in contact with air), which protects the rest of the Titanium.
Its resistance to corrosion is almost the same as Platinum.
It can even withstand the attack of dilute acids like dilute Sulfuric and Hydrochloric acids, many organic acids and chloride solutions.
Titanium gets corroded by concentrated acids.
It is a highly reactive metal and burns at temperatures below its melting point.
Melting of Titanium can be done only in an inert atmosphere or in a vacuum.
It reacts with halogens and absorbs Hydrogen.
One of the few metals which burn in pure Nitrogen at 800 degrees Celsius is Titanium. It forms Titanium Nitride.
Titanium is mostly seen in its +4 oxidation state (oxidation state is the number of electrons an atom loses in a chemical reaction), but +3 oxidation state is also more or less common.
Titanium is used as an alloying agent and is mixed with many metals like steel, Aluminum, Molybdenum, Copper, Iron, Manganese, etc.
The alloys of Titanium are generally used in aerospace, industrial, and recreational markets.
Powdered Titanium is used in pyrotechnics or simply fireworks, matchsticks, oxygen candles, etc., because it is the source of particles which burn brightly.
Titanium Oxide (TiO2) is a permanent white pigment and is used in the paper, toothpaste, plastics, etc. It is also used as a strengthening factor in graphite component present in golf clubs and fishing rods.
Titanium is also used in cement, gemstones, etc.
95% of the Titanium produced is converted into Titanium Oxide.