Discovery of Titanium
Titanium’s discovery was announced in 1791 by the amateur geologist Reverend William Gregor from Cornwall, England.
Gregor found a black, magnetic sand that looked like gunpowder in a stream in the parish of Mannacan in Cornwall, England. (We now call this sand ilmenite; it is a mixture consisting mainly of the oxides of iron and titanium.)
Gregor analyzed the sand, finding it was largely magnetite (Fe3O4) and the rather impure oxide of a new metal, which he described as ‘reddish brown calx.’
This calx turned yellow when dissolved in sulfuric acid and purple when reduced with iron, tin or zinc. Gregor concluded that he was dealing with a new metal, which he named manaccanite in honor of the parish of Mannacan.
Having discovered a new metal, Gregor returned to his pastoral duties.
Little more happens in our story until 1795, when the well-known German chemist Martin Klaproth experienced the thrill of discovering a new metallic element. Klaproth called the new metal titanium, after the Titans, the sons of the Earth goddess in Greek mythology.
Klaproth discovered titanium in the mineral rutile, from Boinik, Hungary. Just like Gregor’s calx, the rutile was a red color. In 1797 Klaproth read Gregor’s account from 1791 and realized that the red oxide in which he had found titanium and the red oxide in which Gregor had found manaccanite were in fact the same; titanium and maccanite were the same element and Gregor was the element’s true discoverer.
Gregor may have beaten Klaproth to the new metal, but scientists preferred Klaproth’s ‘titanium’ to Gregor’s ‘manaccanite.’
Obtaining a sample of pure titanium proved to be much harder than discovering it.
Many scientists tried, but it took 119 years from its discovery until 99.9% pure titanium was isolated in 1910 by metallurgist Matthew Hunter in Schenectady, New York, who heated titanium (IV) chloride with sodium to red-heat in a pressure cylinder.
In 1936, the Kroll Process (heating titanium (IV) chloride with magnesium) made the commercial production of titanium possible. By 1948 worldwide production had reached just 3 tons a year.
By 1956, however, scientists and engineers had realized titanium’s properties were highly desirable and worldwide production had exploded to 25,000 tons a year.
The 2011 forecast for worldwide production of titanium metal using the Kroll process was 223,000 metric tons.
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