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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). Thorpe does not say how the titanium is freed from the salt; ours follows Nagesh, Titanium Extraction Metallurgy (IntechOpen, 2023). Picture drawn by Youblob.
Advanced
1 day
Instructions
1
1
Charge the steel bomb
Charge the steel bomb
Weigh pure titanium tetrachloride and about half its weight of sodium into a steel bomb, and close it.
Materials for this step:
Titanium Tetrachloride1 as requiredTools needed:
Sodium
Precision Digital Scale — 0.01g
Steel Bomb2
2
Heat to low red heat
Heat to low red heat
Heat the bomb to a low red heat. Ours: a muffle furnace.
Tools needed:
Muffle Furnace
Crucible Tongs3
3
Free the titanium
Free the titanium
Ours, after Nagesh, Titanium Extraction Metallurgy (IntechOpen, 2023): leach the reaction product with water, which dissolves the sodium chloride and the leftover sodium and leaves the titanium. Leftover sodium reacts violently with water and gives off hydrogen: add the product to the water a little at a time, away from flames. Ours: dry the metal in an oven.
Tools needed:
Water
Glass Beaker
Drying OvenMaterials
1- 1 as requiredPlaceholder
Tools Required
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