New Titanium Processing Technique Lowers Cost

[Scooper]

This sounds like good news for Ti lovers.

Lowering titanium's cost and environmental footprint for lightweight products

[avalonracing]

Originally Posted by Scooper

This sounds like good news for Ti lovers.

Lowering titanium's cost and environmental footprint for lightweight products

Uh oh... What if it becomes cheaper to make a Ti bike than a plastic, I mean, carbon bike? If that's the case bike manufacturers, their marketers and then the riders who parrot them will soon be telling us that, because of their ride quality and performance, Titanium bikes are the only bikes that racers and serious riders should use.

[mvrider]

That article is maddening in its omission of a link to the source article. Here it is, with the abstract below:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja408118x

Chemists on the Forum may appreciate this process flow:

Titanium is the ninth most abundant element, fourth among common metals, in the Earth’s crust. Apart from some high-value applications in, e.g., the aerospace, biomedicine, and defense industries, the use of titanium in industrial or civilian applications has been extremely limited because of its high embodied energy and high cost. However, employing titanium would significantly reduce energy consumption of mechanical systems such as civilian transportation vehicles, which would have a profound impact on the sustainability of a global economy and the society of the future. The root cause of the high cost of titanium is its very strong affinity for oxygen. Conventional methods for Ti extraction involve several energy-intensive processes, including upgrading ilmenite ore to Ti-slag and then to synthetic rutile, high-temperature carbo-chlorination to produce TiCl4, and batch reduction of TiCl4 using Mg or Na (Kroll or Hunter process). This Communication describes a novel chemical pathway for extracting titanium metal from the upgraded titanium minerals (Ti-slag) with 60% less energy consumption than conventional methods. The new method involves direct reduction of Ti-slag using magnesium hydride, forming titanium hydride, which is subsequently purified by a series of chemical leaching steps. By directly reducing Ti-slag in the first step, Ti is chemically separated from impurities without using high-temperature processes.

[jtakeda]

That's really cool.

Maybe a rise in Ti accessories; Stems, posts, bottle cages etc will follow?

[Scooper]

Originally Posted by mvrider

That article is maddening in its omission of a link to the source article. Here it is, with the abstract below:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja408118x

Thanks for the link!

[evo111@comcast.net]

Always impressive how people figure ways to process materials.

[mike p]

Is this theory or has it been put to practice yet? Any ideas what the cost reduction will be to us, the consumer?

Mike

[Admiral Ackbar]

id imagine it will be a while until this trickles down to cycling

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by avalonracing

Uh oh... What if it becomes cheaper to make a Ti bike than a plastic, I mean, carbon bike? If that's the case bike manufacturers, their marketers and then the riders who parrot them will soon be telling us that, because of their ride quality and performance, Titanium bikes are the only bikes that racers and serious riders should use.

Love this...

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by avalonracing

Uh oh... What if it becomes cheaper to make a Ti bike than a plastic, I mean, carbon bike? If that's the case bike manufacturers, their marketers and then the riders who parrot them will soon be telling us that, because of their ride quality and performance, Titanium bikes are the only bikes that racers and serious riders should use.

I wouldn't worry about that happening. The cost of raw material is only a small part of the cost of a frame - even for titanium frames. The larger part of the reason titanium frames are more expensive than, say, steel or aluminum frames, is that titanium is more difficult to work with (forming, cutting, welding, etc.). While this new process to extract titanium from ore could decrease the cost of titanium frames somewhat, they will still be very expensive to make.

[Ahneida Ride]

Simply a Titanic discovery !


Yea .... Ti is not an easy material to work with .... you have to know what you are doing.
So even if you knock a few frns off the tube sets, you still have the labor costs.

[PaMtbRider]

Originally Posted by Ahneida Ride

Simply a Titanic discovery !


Yea .... Ti is not an easy material to work with .... you have to know what you are doing.
So even if you knock a few frns off the tube sets, you still have the labor costs.

Could you maybe just once make a post without using the non-word frns

[Ahneida Ride]

Originally Posted by PaMtbRider

Could you maybe just once make a post without using the non-word frns

Why ? ... that is what exactly they are .... "federal reserve note" ..
Says it right on top ... take a peek ...

it is in small print .... right on top

Actually they are not even notes since they do not specify the terms of their redemption
frnacation is the process of creating em by typing numbers into a computer spread sheet.

They are frequently denoted as frn. Please look at the Wikipedia articles ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Note

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US...14-Fr.898a.jpg

The are distinct from United States Notes issued by the US Treasury Notes on which taxpayers do not pay interest.

[zmudshark]

Ironic that the breakthrough was made with funding by the US Government

[dekindy]

Originally Posted by zmudshark

Ironic that the breakthrough was made with funding by the US Government

Good indication that it is not a big deal and not cost-effective or the private sector would have done it a long time ago.