New Titanium-Making Process

It still comes down to supply, which I believe Russia has or at least did have at one time.

But there is speculation in Paraguay.

bUT THIS PROCESS IS A HUGE STEP FORWARD. ..... just noticed my caps were on...... must have been excited.

What is the abrasion resistance for this material as compared to hi-chrome iron or ni hard? Could this be utilized for pump impellers?

The hardened high chrome impellers I deal with are machined by grinding, Some applications require stainless steel at the sacrifice of wear/abrasion resistance. That is why I asked.

There was mention of laser assisted machining here in the past, could this be applied to these titanium materials?

I think that normal grinding would be unsuitable for titanium. It generates too much heat and in a standard atmosphere the titanium would grab oxygen from the air and turn into a mixture of titanium monoxide and dioxide. That is the white power used as the pigment in white emulsion paint. Grinding in an inert atmosphere may be possible but I don't know how titanium would react with the abrasive medium. By laser assisted machining you are probably referring to laser sintering. For this you create a virtual model of what you want to make and cut it into thin virtual slices the way you would if you were 3D printing. The part is made in an enclosed cooled space filled with nitrogen. Spread a thin layer of titanium powder over the whole area and feed data from the lowest slice into an X-Y driver that carries a laser. The laser melts the powder into a solid layer to coincide with solid areas in the virtual model. Now spread a second layer and melt this onto the first one. Continue building up in layers until you have the completed part. You end up with a part submerged in all the layers of titanium powder that wasn't melted. All that spare powder is then sucked out and recycled. To stop the first layer melting into the base of the enclosure you would normally build the part onto legs that get welded (melted) onto a false titanium base of the enclosure. The whole process takes a long time so is very expensive. Typically about double the cost of a 10-40 hour continuous operation on a CNC machining center depending on the size of the part. Now add the cost of cutting off the legs and machining where they were attached and the cost of the powder at about 3/5 times the price of stainless steel depending on the grade. The thinner the slices the less post machining required but the longer it takes to build the model so the process is usually run at a lowest overall cost compromise. Once commercialized the new manufacturing method described by the OP is going to drop the raw materials price but that only represents a small proportion of manufacturing a component using sintering. Despite all the recent hype, we are still a long way from knocking out car parts in bulk.

Laser assisted machining to mean a laser beam directed at the material just ahead of the tool bit to change properties.

That would heat up the workpiece which is the last thing you want to do. When machining titanium you want to keep the workpiece and tool as cool as possible.

What material is being machined in the photograph you put up? Is that actually titanium? Are you sure the laser is ahead of the cutting tool, or behind to anneal and smooth the surface thus previously cut?

That particular work piece is ceramic, but if you Google "laser assisted machining",you will see that this process is intended for materials that are difficult to machine. From what I understand, the heating is very localized and can be controlled.

The laser leads the tool bit.

As a cyclist I can't help but think how this would apply to bicycles. Maybe it would make titanium competitive in price to carbon fiber (or bamboo).

Since this process works OK for Titanium production, I wonder what it does to Magnesium chloride? One of the proposed "new" economies (by researchers at Japan Institute of Technology), is the magnesium economy. Magnesium is abundant.

Magnesium also produces hydrogen when exposed to steam, and the reaction can be "snow-balled" to produce even more steam. The steam can be used with prime movers, engines of all sorts.

The trick has been recycling the MgO back to Mg and O2. If we break it down, and convert the MgO to MgCl₂ first, then perhaps hydrogen atom reagent could take away HCL, and leave Mg metal behind. If that works, then the high output power continuous wave solar-pumped Nd:Cr:YAG laser (HELIOS) is no longer necessary.