Reduction of TiCl4 in molten salt/liquid metal mixtures

With the purpose of developing a new process for titanium powder production , a fundamental investigation on TiCl4 reduction in a reaction medium consi sting of a mixture of molten salt and metal magnesium at 973 K was carried out. By applying an electrochemical potential on a feed injection nozzle, c logging of the feed tube was prevented. This anodic polarization technique is shown to be useful for feeding TiCl4 directly into the reactive reaction medium. As an alternate method for TiCl4 feed into the medium, a well-type mixer was specially designed and fabricated, and conditions for effective mixing of molten salt and metal phases were investigated. A preliminary exp eriment using water and oil showed that even the gas phase can be involved in the reaction medium under high rotation speed mixing (>700 min(-1)). Whe n TiCl4 gas was fed into the gas phase above the reaction medium, some part of the feed reacted with the medium and was reduced to titanium metal. How ever, a major portion of the feed was reduced on the metal wall of the reac tion container. When solidified TiCl4 was charged into the medium mixed by the mixer, titanium deposit in powder and sponge form was obtained. The amo unt of titanium power was increased with increasing rotation speed of the m ixer. The mixture of molten salt and liquid metal is shown to be useful as a reaction medium for titanium powder production, however, the titanium dep osit was found to adhere to the reaction wall under certain conditions.