Abstract
The recycling of titanium (Ti) scraps requires the direct removal of oxygen (O) from the Ti scraps. Although several deoxidation techniques for Ti have been developed, the strong affinity between Ti and O limits their cost-effectiveness. In this study, we develop a new deoxidation process for Ti using cerium (Ce) metal, which is the most abundant and cost-effective rare earth element. Thermodynamic analysis suggests that the deoxidation through the formation of Ce oxyhalides in halide fluxes containing Ce ions enables the production of Ti with extremely low O concentrations. We experimentally demonstrate that the formation reaction of CeOCl with Ce metal can deoxidize Ti metal and produce highly pure Ti with 100 mass ppm O or below, which is lower than the O concentration of the virgin Ti produced by the Kroll process. This deoxidation process with Ce metal enables the recycling of Ti scraps contaminated with O.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Mr. Koichi Hirota at Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. for providing us with rare earth metal samples. We are grateful to Mr. Akihiro Iizuka and Mr. Kenta Akaishi at the University of Tokyo for their experimental support and their comments on this manuscript. This work was financially supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) through a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S) (KAKENHI Grant No. 19H05623). This paper is also based on results obtained from a project commissioned by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).
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Kamimura, G., Ouchi, T., Okabe, T.H. (2022). Deoxidation of Titanium Using Cerium Metal and Its Oxyhalide Formation. In: Lazou, A., Daehn, K., Fleuriault, C., Gökelma, M., Olivetti, E., Meskers, C. (eds) REWAS 2022: Developing Tomorrow’s Technical Cycles (Volume I). The Minerals, Metals & Materials Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92563-5_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92563-5_10
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