Titanium is called the material of the future. This title results from the unique combination of properties such as good corrosion resistance, high strength and biocompatibility with low density. Due to these properties, titanium alloys are increasingly being used in areas such as aerospace, automotive, chemical or medical technology.
Despite its relative commonness as the fourth most abundant element in the earth’s crust, titanium remains denied a wide industrial use. The reason for this is the high price of the metal, which results from the production costs. To reduce these and thus to allow the titanium the broad mass accessibility is a big challenge in research.
A reduction in process costs could be achieved both by minimizing process steps and increasing efficiency. For this reason, investigations have been made in the past for the direct recovery of titanium from rutile. By aluminothermic conversion of the TiO2 with aluminum so the costly chlorination and reduction step in the Kroll-method could be omitted. Furthermore, optimizations of this process have been made such as the mechanical activation of the rutile (reduction of  booster   up to 30%) or the study of alternative booster agents (reduction of chlorine emissions).
The recycling of the more frequently used titanium powders in additive manufacturing is also being pursued. In the HDH process, these powders are processed and prepared for further usein metallic 3D-printing.

Contact:

• M.Sc. Richard Schneider

Alumni:

• M.Sc. Carolin Maier geb. Mazurek
• Dipl.-Ing. Jeraldiny Becker
• M.Sc. Frederic Brinkmann
• Dr.-Ing. Gözde Alkan
• M.Sc. Alexandra Daldrup
• M.Sc. Christoph Vonderstein
• Dr.-Ing. Jan-Christoph Stoephasius
• Dr.-Ing. Qin Peng
• Dr.-Ing. Peter Spiess
• Dr.-Ing. Claus Lochbichler
• Dr.-Ing. Seyran Hassan-Pour
• Dr.-Ing. Ksenija Milicevic Neumann
• Dr.-Ing. Joerg Hammerschmidt
• Dr.-Ing. Jan Hecht geb. Reitz
• Dr.-Ing. Rafael Bolivar
• M.Sc. Aybars Güven
• Dr.-Ing. Claudia Oosterhof geb. Kommer
• Dipl.-Ing. Björn Rotmann