Titanium was first discovered in 1791 in Menachan Valley, Cornwall,
England, by clergyman and amateur chemist William Gregor. Gregor
analyzed gun powder-like sand and found a reddish brown calx he could
not identify. Four years later in Berlin, renowned chemist Martin
Heinrich Klaproth independently discovered the element in rutile.
Klaproth named the element Titanium, after the mythological Titans,
first sons of the earth.
But isolating titanium would remain elusive for almost a century. Many
failed attemps were made by scientists such as Vauquelin, Heinrich Rose,
Bezelius and Klaproth himself, and it was not until 1887 that titanium
was first isolated (95% pure) by Lars Nilson and Otto Pettersson. Henri
Moissan then used his electric furnace to produce 98% purity. Titanium
was finally isolated at 99.9% purity in 1910 by Matthew Albert Hunter at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in cooperation with the General
Electric Company. The metal remained a laboratory curiosity until 1946,
when William Justin Kroll of Luxembourg showed that titanium could be
produced commercially by reducing titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) with
magnesium. This method is widely used for titanium metal production
today and Kroll is recognized as the father of this modern industry.
After the Second World War, Air Force studies concluded that
titanium-based alloys were of potentially great importance. The emerging
need for higher strength/weight ratios in jet aircraft structures and
engines could not be satisfied efficiently by either steel or aluminum.
The Department of Defense therefore provided production incentives to
boost-start the titanium industry. After the impetus was provided by the
aerospace industry, the ready availability of the metal gave rise to
opportunities for new applications in other markets, such as chemical
processing, medicine, power generation and more.
Titanium’s outstanding strength-to-lightweight ratio and its incredible
resistance to most forms of corrosion have been the primary historical
incentives for utilizing titanium in industry, replacing stainless
steels, copper alloys and other metals.
