Titanium Abundance and Cost

name         Chris
status       other
grade        other
location     CA

Question -   I heard Titanium is the 8th (or so)
most abundant element on the surface of Earth. So
why is Titanium alloy so expensive?
---------------------------------------
Hi Chris,

There is a big difference between the cost of a metal's ore,
and the cost of the refined metal or its alloy. First,
various compounds of titanium may in fact be plentiful in the
earth's crust, but to be useful, the ore has to have a
sufficiently high titanium concentration to make the metal's
extraction economic. There are relatively few places where
titanium concentrations are high enough to make its mining
viable. There are many minerals containing titanium, but only
two are useful for refining.

The relative rarity of useful ore deposits is one problem,
but the main reason for the metal's high cost is the extreme
difficulty in obtaining the pure metal from the ore which is
typically either Rutile (impure TiO2) or Ilmanite (impure
FeTiO3). The most common refining process (known as the Kroll
process) is complex and very expensive, resulting in the
metal (and its alloys) being very costly. Until a lower cost
refining process is developed (and such work is underway),
do not expect to see the cost of titanium drop to reasonable
levels.

Regards,

Bob Wilson
====================================================================