by digdugdirk on 6/9/25, 12:07 AM
Titanium has an undeniable "cool factor" due to its use in aerospace, but everyone needs to understand that this is just a case of material science nerds doing something cool in a lab, and there will be no "widespread use in industry" even if they do fix the other issues mentioned in the article - and even if someone manages to figure out a way to viably scale up the process to an industrial level.
The reason? Titanium sucks to work with.
Machinists hate it, equipment hates it, cutting tools hate it, and it makes shavings that can burn hot enough to go right through equipment and concrete floors. That's what makes titanium parts so expensive, not just the material cost alone. It absolutely has properties that make it a perfect material for specific situations, but making it cheaper to buy definitely won't make titanium a common every day thing.
So - enjoy the science! Give a round of applause for the cool new method this team figured out. And then go back to appreciating how wild it is that titanium parts can even be produced at all, because holy smokes is it a pain in the rear in almost every way...
by Aurornis on 6/8/25, 8:23 PM
This is very cool indeed, but I laughed when I got to the conclusion:
> A limitation of this work is that the resulting de-oxygenated titanium contains yttrium, up to 1% by mass; yttrium can influence the mechanical and chemical properties of titanium alloy. After solving the yttrium contamination problem…
So the process removes the oxygen but then adds yttrium to the metal in significant amounts. That’s not quite the ultra pure titanium I was promised in the headline.
As always, I hope someone figures out the rest of the problem space. As-is, this looks like trading one problem for another.
by duffpkg on 6/8/25, 10:31 PM
In "Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed", which is a great read, there is discussion of the incredibly difficult time they had setting up tooling for working with titanium. This remains largely true today. Making things at any scale in titanium, while controlling cost is very, very difficult. Even if the titanium itself is gotten very cheaply.
by westurner on 6/4/25, 10:05 PM
>
Unfortunately, producing ultrapure titanium is significantly more expensive than manufacturing steel (an iron alloy) and aluminum, owing to the substantial use of energy and resources in preparing high-purity titanium. Developing a cheap, easy way to prepare it—and facilitate product development for industry and common consumers—is the problem the researchers aimed to address."Direct production of low-oxygen-concentration titanium from molten titanium" (2024)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49085-4
by LasEspuelas on 6/8/25, 8:36 PM
Everything is urgent:
"There is thus an urgent need to develop a high-speed and efficient refining method to realize the mass production of low-cost Ti."
by foota on 6/8/25, 8:21 PM
by zafka on 6/8/25, 11:00 PM
Nitinol has been haunting me since 1977 or so. It is such a cool alloy. When I first heard of it, very little had been done with it, and now it is used in many areas. I have yet to come up with any killer use of it on my own though......
by eth0up on 6/9/25, 2:23 AM
I shall be buried, incinerated, cast into the sea or whatever, but my cold dead hands won't ever willfully release my titanium SnowPeak mug. Even if I don't need fluids in the afterlife, I'll keep it filled with space, or anything I can stuff in it. Perhaps I'll live in it, but I do adore the cup. Fit enough to traverse the universe in, by my standards.
Works great on tea, plain H20 and anything I've put in it. Non reactive as far as I can tell and rugged too.
by phkahler on 6/9/25, 2:11 PM
>> A limitation of this work is that the resulting de-oxygenated titanium contains yttrium, up to 1% by mass; yttrium can influence the mechanical and chemical properties of titanium alloy. After solving the yttrium contamination problem, applications to industrial manufacturing will be straightforward.
How much does the yttrium matter? How likely is there to be a solution to that problem?
by neutrinobro on 6/9/25, 2:10 PM
Buried at the end of the article:
> A limitation of this work is that the resulting de-oxygenated titanium contains yttrium, up to 1% by mass;
> After solving the yttrium contamination problem, applications to industrial manufacturing will be straightforward.
One wonders how much of a problem this is for most applications, and how easy it will be to solve...
by jjcm on 6/8/25, 7:38 PM
Surely this is something that will go down in price as energy costs do, regardless of the yttrium approach, correct? With solar getting cheaper and fusion on the horizon, won’t that address the problem as well? I wonder if this intermediary step is necessary if so.
by exabrial on 6/9/25, 12:59 PM
please no more titantium phones / watches though. Stainless is a much harder much more appropriate material. Tired of scratches, but "O M G ITS TITANIUM"
by rkagerer on 6/10/25, 7:22 PM
A critical step in the researchers' protocol is reacting molten titanium with yttrium metal and yttrium trifluoride or a similar substance...A limitation of this work is that the resulting de-oxygenated titanium contains yttrium, up to 1% by mass; yttrium can influence the mechanical and chemical properties of titanium alloy. After solving the yttrium contamination problem, applications to industrial manufacturing will be straightforward.
Any thoughts how they'll do that?