Titanium: Titanium Tetrachloride Heated with Sodium in a Steel Bomb (Hunter, Thorpe 1913)

Sodium strips the chlorine from titanium tetrachloride inside a sealed steel bomb, leaving titanium metal in common salt. Result: very pure titanium that looks like polished steel; hard and brittle cold, forgeable at low red heat, melting at 1800–1850 °C. Source: Thorpe, Dictionary of Applied Chemistry vol. 5 (1913), p. 501, after Hunter (J. Amer. Chem. Soc. 1910, 32, 330). Unknown: how the titanium is freed from the salt; Thorpe does not give it. Picture drawn by Youblob.