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Cheap yet ultrapure titanium might enable widespread use in industry (2024) | |
phkahler wrote 23 hours 48 min ago: | |
>> A limitation of this work is that the resulting de-oxygenated | |
titanium contains yttrium, up to 1% by mass; yttrium can influence the | |
mechanical and chemical properties of titanium alloy. After solving the | |
yttrium contamination problem, applications to industrial manufacturing | |
will be straightforward. | |
How much does the yttrium matter? How likely is there to be a solution | |
to that problem? | |
neutrinobro wrote 23 hours 49 min ago: | |
Buried at the end of the article: | |
> A limitation of this work is that the resulting de-oxygenated | |
titanium contains yttrium, up to 1% by mass; | |
> After solving the yttrium contamination problem, applications to | |
industrial manufacturing will be straightforward. | |
One wonders how much of a problem this is for most applications, and | |
how easy it will be to solve... | |
exabrial wrote 1 day ago: | |
please no more titantium phones / watches though. Stainless is a much | |
harder much more appropriate material. Tired of scratches, but "O M G | |
ITS TITANIUM" | |
mock-possum wrote 1 day ago: | |
I thought the deal with titanium was that it was lightweight and | |
durable, not scratch proof. | |
exabrial wrote 12 hours 2 min ago: | |
My take: We're talking a few grams difference on a phone/watch. If | |
it were a laptop, it might actually make a difference, but they | |
don't get beat around like a watch or phone does. | |
Titanium is basically as hard as al dente pasta, topping out around | |
40 HRC... which some composite plastics can approach. Meanwwhile | |
even your crappy outdated stainless formulations from the 1940s can | |
easily reach 60 HRC. | |
According to chatgpt, an apple watch weigh 61grams in | |
hipster-loathing titanium. If you were to use stainless on that, | |
it'd increase it by... 30grams. At it could be hardened to absurd | |
levels (60+), to the point were scratching would only be possible | |
by silica bearing materials like hard hard rock. | |
thaumasiotes wrote 23 hours 41 min ago: | |
Durable how? A wristwatch isn't experiencing much in the way of | |
stress. | |
eth0up wrote 1 day ago: | |
I shall be buried, incinerated, cast into the sea or whatever, but my | |
cold dead hands won't ever willfully release my titanium SnowPeak mug. | |
Even if I don't need fluids in the afterlife, I'll keep it filled with | |
space, or anything I can stuff in it. Perhaps I'll live in it, but I do | |
adore the cup. Fit enough to traverse the universe in, by my standards. | |
Works great on tea, plain H20 and anything I've put in it. Non reactive | |
as far as I can tell and rugged too. | |
amluto wrote 1 day ago: | |
> Works great on tea | |
What kind of tea? I did some (controlled but not blind) experiments | |
a few years ago, and a titanium Snow Peak mug won the contest for | |
rapid conversion of tasty green tea into a flavorless but similar | |
colored substance hands down. | |
I do not actually believe that titanium is non-reactive to food, | |
although itâs not aggressively reactive with tomatoes the way that | |
aluminum or cast iron is. | |
eth0up wrote 23 hours 50 min ago: | |
Oolong, loongching, typical blacks, a red I can't pronounce (tsin | |
hong?), herbals... | |
Long ago when I had a reliable source for organic dragonwell, my | |
favorite tea, I found it did perfectly. I admittedly may have | |
compromised sensory, though I'm sincerely surprised (not skeptical) | |
of your results. | |
It is probably me, as my benchmark for the best greens are, that | |
left to steep, the leaves sink and do not float. And yes, I'm aware | |
that it's said to increase heavy metal content of the brew. And | |
yes, I'm also aware that this violates the tealitist convention. | |
However, imposter cups and imitations, which brands I won't name, | |
I'd hesitate to use as bed pans. | |
Edit: it's worth adding that I almost never scrub it or use soap. | |
The interior is stained, presumably with tannins | |
amluto wrote 22 hours 11 min ago: | |
I would believe that the patina of organic stuff protects the tea | |
from the metal. I tested on a thoroughly cleaned Snow Peak mug, | |
and I even tried to passivate it with citric acid to no effect. | |
eth0up wrote 21 hours 51 min ago: | |
Passivation... | |
I definitely hit my cheap stainless containers with | |
passivation, but hadn't thought to with titanium. Glad you | |
mentioned it though, as someone is bound to pass by and learn | |
of the concept and hopefully benefit from it, which I think can | |
be pretty important with cheap stainless, for health purposes. | |
amluto wrote 21 hours 9 min ago: | |
Iâm not convinced that passivating a titanium cup would | |
have much if any effect. Chemicals like citric acid remove | |
iron, and there shouldnât by any appreciable amount of iron | |
on the surface to begin with. I also donât know whether the | |
undesired (to me) green tea reaction is with titanium metal | |
or with titanium dioxide. | |
It could be interesting to experiment with anodized titanium. | |
Apparently, one can fairly easily build up moderately thick | |
oxide layers with various properties. | |
eth0up wrote 11 hours 51 min ago: | |
My attempts to anodize have been exclusively with aluminum, | |
using primitive if not directly stupid methodology. The | |
results were trivial, with a formidable mess. | |
Anodization is really awesome when done properly. At the | |
risk of exposing my inner moron, I must admit I was not | |
aware that titanium was a candidate. | |
digdugdirk wrote 1 day ago: | |
Titanium has an undeniable "cool factor" due to its use in aerospace, | |
but everyone needs to understand that this is just a case of material | |
science nerds doing something cool in a lab, and there will be no | |
"widespread use in industry" even if they do fix the other issues | |
mentioned in the article - and even if someone manages to figure out a | |
way to viably scale up the process to an industrial level. | |
The reason? Titanium sucks to work with. | |
Machinists hate it, equipment hates it, cutting tools hate it, and it | |
makes shavings that can burn hot enough to go right through equipment | |
and concrete floors. That's what makes titanium parts so expensive, not | |
just the material cost alone. It absolutely has properties that make it | |
a perfect material for specific situations, but making it cheaper to | |
buy definitely won't make titanium a common every day thing. | |
So - enjoy the science! Give a round of applause for the cool new | |
method this team figured out. And then go back to appreciating how wild | |
it is that titanium parts can even be produced at all, because holy | |
smokes is it a pain in the rear in almost every way... | |
tecleandor wrote 4 hours 2 min ago: | |
I remember talking to a guy I shared an office with like 10 or 15 | |
years ago. He did 3D modeling for jewelry and dentists (as separate | |
gigs, not jewelry on teeth ;) ) and he had access to 3D print | |
titanium with a laser sintering device in the dentist practice. | |
What he told me is titanium is not expensive, but the problem is with | |
the tooling. Expensive, hard to work with and energy intensive . | |
m463 wrote 19 hours 55 min ago: | |
an apple titanium powerbook was pretty cool though | |
EDIT: | |
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_G4#Titanium_(2001-20... | |
nimbius wrote 1 day ago: | |
maybe like 40 years ago? ive never understood where this comes | |
from...its sort of the same argument machinists in the seventies had | |
when automotive companies were building components with 15% nickel | |
hardening out of dedicated normalizing and heat treat furnaces. tool | |
steel life died a bit, but it wasnt the end of the world. | |
not anymore really. Kennametal and Sandvik all make insert tooling | |
that will easily cut through Ti. Your multi-axis mills and CNC's | |
will even track the tool wear for you and report when to replace. | |
Titanium is no worse or better in your Haas than any other material | |
in 2025. | |
and if youre still having problems, EDM will absolutely slice through | |
it like butter. | |
nobody is working endmills or lathes with dry Ti and toolsteel in | |
2025. robots drown the piece in coolant and pick the right tools. | |
jajko wrote 21 hours 7 min ago: | |
Still sounds like tons of reasons to have high final cost, compared | |
to cheaper metals. | |
adrian_b wrote 19 hours 2 min ago: | |
How to machine titanium is well known now, but it requires more | |
time and more energy than machining the same object from any | |
other cheap metal. | |
This is caused by fundamental properties of the metal, so it will | |
not change in the future. Therefore machining titanium will | |
always be more expensive than for steel or aluminum alloys or | |
copper alloys. | |
Making titanium objects by casting is seldom a possible choice, | |
because that is also much more expensive than for any other cheap | |
metal, due to high melting temperature and the requirement to use | |
an inert atmosphere. | |
Making titanium objects by plastic deformation is also expensive, | |
because none of the titanium alloys has good ductility. The | |
metals that are cheap to process by plastic deformation are those | |
with a fcc crystal structure, like aluminum, copper and | |
austenitic steel at room temperature, or like most steels at high | |
temperature. The titanium alloys do not have such a crystal | |
structure, so they cannot be deformed a lot without breaking. | |
One of the few processing methods where the titanium alloys do | |
not have properties that increase the processing cost in | |
comparison with other metals in 3D printing. However 3D printing | |
is a relatively expensive processing method for any metal. | |
gadders wrote 1 day ago: | |
Does this mean I won't get a cheap titanium suit of armour? Could me | |
a game changer for HEMA. | |
bell-cot wrote 23 hours 59 min ago: | |
Yep, nope. | |
BTW - might HEMA have any safety regs, for equipment that could | |
become a Class D fire? There might be hazmat issues transporting | |
such armour by air. | |
bluGill wrote 1 day ago: | |
You can get one if you are willing to pay for it. It means there | |
is no reason to think that suit of armour will ever be cheap, and | |
this advance while potentially lowering the costs won't lower it | |
enough. | |
Then again iron suits of armour are not cheap (though cheaper than | |
titanium), and are mostly useless in the real world - but people | |
have them. If you have the money I won't object you to getting one. | |
gadders wrote 23 hours 55 min ago: | |
I often wonder how much we could improve on historic items like | |
suits of armour using modern materials and manufacturing. | |
bluGill wrote 23 hours 34 min ago: | |
Look at what the modern military uses. They face the same | |
issues, even if bullets are somewhat different from arrows or | |
swords, you still want to protect the same areas of the body | |
again forces, and the same issues of weight, heat, | |
maneuverability and such vs protection. While the exact | |
compromise changes over time, any armorer in history will | |
understand the compromises and why the modern military armour | |
looks different. | |
Which is to say I'd expect a modern suit of armour to be made | |
of kevlar. | |
gadders wrote 22 hours 41 min ago: | |
What I meant was, how much better would a modern version of | |
medieval plate armour be if made from modern materials, vs | |
armour made at the time for medieval combat. | |
dlahoda wrote 1 day ago: | |
i have titanium: | |
phone frame(with 7 years supports of insides), watch frame, watch | |
brace, sushi sticks, forks, spoons, table knife, frying pans, pen, | |
sunglasses frame, necklace. | |
it is a lot titanium outthere in retail. | |
AngryData wrote 1 day ago: | |
I could see cheaper titanium increasing its usage a good bit, only | |
because we already avoid needing it whenever possible already. But | |
overall I agree with you, titanium is significantly lighter than | |
steel, but it isn't meaningfully stronger outside of special use | |
cases, so the extra cost of manufacturing brings little to no value | |
to 95% of steel usecases. Steel is just so easy to work with these | |
days. And if something titanium breaks, its a full replacement of | |
that cast or machined piece because you can't just weld it up with a | |
simple portable welder, while steel can be repaired and modified near | |
anywhere with dozens of relatively cheap and easy to use tools. | |
ekaryotic wrote 1 day ago: | |
steel is great except for how easily it rusts. there are regions on | |
the planet where a car shell is rotted out in 10 years. if a shell | |
could be made from titanium you would have a long life vehicle, | |
with environmental and economic savings. | |
adrian_b wrote 19 hours 31 min ago: | |
Stainless steel is cheaper than titanium. Even if the price | |
difference between titanium and stainless steel is likely to | |
become smaller, it is most likely that stainless steel will | |
always remain significantly cheaper, especially in the form of | |
alloys where nickel is replaced by manganese and a part of the | |
chromium is replaced by aluminum. | |
Unfortunately, even stainless steel is considered as too | |
expensive by the car manufacturers, despite the fact that when we | |
consider the total cost over the lifetime of the vehicle, with | |
the need of replacing the rusted parts, the cost of stainless | |
steel could have been less (but then customers would have been | |
repealed by seeing higher upfront costs, without knowing how much | |
they will spend on repairs in the future). | |
bluGill wrote 1 day ago: | |
Citation needed. This depends very much on the alloy, but I | |
would expect titanium cars would be forced scrapped after 200,000 | |
miles (most of my cars reached 200k miles before they reached 10 | |
years old) by law because fatigue builds up in normal use and the | |
car is liable to break apart. Aluminum has the same issues and | |
commercial trailers track how much the trailers are used and | |
scrap them. | |
Steel has the nice property that if you stay under certain stress | |
limits fatigue doesn't built up over time and so you can keep | |
using it as long as you care to (or until salt gets it). | |
adrian_b wrote 19 hours 26 min ago: | |
How fast a car will rust depends a lot on the country where it | |
is used an also a lot on whether the owner has a garage where | |
to keep it. | |
There are many countries where only a small percentage of the | |
car owners also have garages, so the cars stay always outside, | |
in rains and bad weather. Such cars rust completely far quicker | |
than the cars kept in better conditions. | |
I had a car that I have used for 30 years and many hundred | |
thousand miles, without having a garage. By its end of life, it | |
still had many parts of the original motor, but from the | |
original steel chassis there was nothing left. Every part of it | |
had been replaced several times, due to excessive rust. | |
bluGill wrote 1 hour 8 min ago: | |
There is a lot more than that. Washing a car to get the salt | |
off can make a big difference. Iron can be galvanized to | |
prevent rust. Different alloys rust at different rates. | |
Those are things I know about and I'm not even in the field. | |
Nopoint2 wrote 1 day ago: | |
It isn't toxic, and that's an advantage that overrides any extra | |
costs. | |
arethuza wrote 1 day ago: | |
It's also highly biocompatible so good for things like bone | |
implants. | |
adrian_b wrote 1 day ago: | |
Metallic titanium is already cheaper than copper, and the price ratio | |
between copper and titanium will only increase. | |
However, as you say, the processing costs from the raw metal to a | |
finite product are much higher for titanium than for most cheap | |
metals, mostly because of its low thermal conductivity (which makes | |
titanium locally hot during processing) and its high reactivity with | |
the atmosphere when hot, which is why the products made of titanium | |
are expensive. | |
It is unlikely that titanium will ever replace stainless steel in | |
most of its applications, but wherever the lower density of titanium | |
or its better resistance against certain chemicals give great enough | |
advantages, I hope to see more titanium objects. | |
I certainly like the titanium frame of my reading glasses, which is | |
extremely thin and lightweight, almost invisible, while being much | |
stronger and longer lived than a plastic frame would be. | |
thaumasiotes wrote 23 hours 50 min ago: | |
> and its high reactivity with the atmosphere when hot | |
Isn't that a problem for everything? That's the nature of heat. | |
adrian_b wrote 19 hours 45 min ago: | |
For metals with high electronegativity, like iron and copper, | |
high temperatures do not necessarily create problems due to | |
greater reactivity than at low temperatures. On the contrary, the | |
oxides of such metals may decompose at high enough temperatures. | |
Moreover, when such metals are mixed with more reactive metals, | |
at high temperatures those will combine preferentially with | |
non-metals like oxygen and sulfur, removing them from the metal | |
of interest. | |
For metals with high affinity to oxygen, like titanium, aluminum | |
or magnesium, no temperatures attainable during normal processing | |
are high enough to decompose their oxides, but the high | |
temperatures increase by several orders of magnitude the speed of | |
reaction with the air, in comparison with room temperature, where | |
the speed of oxidation of titanium and aluminum becomes | |
negligible immediately after the formation of a protective oxide | |
layer. | |
Moreover, for such metals it may be more difficult to find even | |
more reactive metals than them, which will extract oxygen from | |
their oxides while not having other undesirable properties, like | |
yttrium was found for titanium in the parent article. Yttrium is | |
a metal with a reactivity not so great as calcium, but greater | |
than magnesium, so also greater than titanium and aluminum. | |
Neither calcium nor magnesium are suitable for removing oxygen | |
from titanium, for various reasons, e.g. low boiling or melting | |
temperatures, so yttrium is likely to create much less problems. | |
So the effects of heat are not always the same. | |
SubjectToChange wrote 21 hours 26 min ago: | |
Molten iron can be poured in open air. Doing that with titanium | |
will yield a distinctly different results. | |
kergonath wrote 23 hours 4 min ago: | |
Thatâs a matter of degree. Iron gets reactive and form some | |
oxide at high temperature. This can be worked around by | |
controlling the atmosphere or adding reducing elements or oxygen | |
traps. Other metals like magnesium just burn, which is much | |
harder to work around. You need to go much higher in temperature | |
than the usual manufacturing conditions to make iron burn in a | |
normal atmosphere. | |
owenversteeg wrote 1 day ago: | |
I agree with your comment in general, and that it is dangerous and | |
abrasive and generally sucks to machine, but there are ways to get | |
around that. For example you can make a lot of parts by | |
stamping/forming/laser cutting fairly inexpensively. Sure, you'll | |
still deal with titanium's quirks, but it's not a severe issue. For | |
those parts the cost of the titanium is still typically the largest | |
individual cost. | |
spankibalt wrote 1 day ago: | |
> Titanium sucks to work with. Machinists hate it, equipment hates | |
it, cutting tools hate it, and it makes shavings that can burn hot | |
enough to go right through equipment and concrete floors. | |
The safety and security implementation, including assorted | |
regulations, certificates, processes, regulators and the like, is as | |
neccessary as it's... vexing. :) | |
mjb wrote 1 day ago: | |
Titanium fires sure are scary. But there's a good amount of chicken | |
and egg here: expensive material limits demand, which limits progress | |
on manufacturing techniques, which keeps part prices high. I would | |
expect that significant manufacturing method progress would be made | |
if there was a step change in the price of titanium stock. | |
And I wouldn't overstate the machining difficulty. Sure, it's a pain | |
in the rear, and expensive, but can be done on regular machines with | |
the right tools, techniques, and processes. I've made a couple of | |
titanium parts myself. | |
nerdsniper wrote 22 hours 35 min ago: | |
Titanium - Chlorine fires are even more magnificent than | |
titanium-oxygen fires. Wet chlorine (>150ppm water) is too | |
corrosive for ferrous metals and titanium is often used for pipes | |
carrying wet chlorine. | |
If something happens that ignites one of these pipelines thereâs | |
absolutely no way to put it out - it has the fuel (titanium) and | |
oxidizer (chlorine) and burns mega-hot until one of them is fully | |
consumed along the entire length of the pipeline. The pipelines can | |
sometimes be shockingly long (1 mile-ish). | |
avs733 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Thereâs a significant history of government effort to improve | |
working with titanium. Construction physics wrote a nice review | |
[0]. | |
The current level of workability and cost and alloying is after | |
that chicken and egg. Titanium is expensive because it is hard to | |
manufacture, not just hard to work with, which limits demand. | |
Titanium, to what we now know, is what it is. Itâs the nature of | |
the material not a lack of investment. | |
More realistically, the ROI isnât there for most applications. | |
Good aluminum is pretty darn good, massively easier to work, | |
cheaper, etc. newer super steels have even made serious inroads on | |
titanium parts because of workability and toughness. | |
[0] | |
[1]: https://www.construction-physics.com/p/the-story-of-titani... | |
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 1 day ago: | |
Magnesium is similar. | |
I used to have a magnesium campfire starter. It was a little ingot | |
of magnesium, with a long flint, embedded along one side. | |
You used your knife to shave some magnesium, then the flint, to set | |
it ablaze. | |
Worked a treat. | |
adastra22 wrote 1 day ago: | |
But thereâs also the base chemistry: titanium doesnât behave | |
like steel, and the chemical differences are why it is such a pain | |
to work with, not inexperience. | |
adrian_b wrote 1 day ago: | |
The chemical difference between titanium and steel is mainly that | |
titanium has a much higher reactivity with oxygen and nitrogen, | |
the main constituents of air. | |
Like with aluminum, this high reactivity is masked in finite | |
products made of titanium, because any titanium object is covered | |
by a protective layer of titanium dioxide. | |
What is worse in titanium than in aluminum is that titanium has a | |
low thermal conductivity, so a small part of the titanium can | |
become very hot during processing, which does not happen with | |
aluminum, where the remainder of the aluminum acts like a | |
heatsink. | |
The hot spots that exist on titanium during processing, which do | |
not exist on aluminum during processing, make titanium much more | |
susceptible to reacting with the air or even to starting a fire. | |
Titanium, even as "commercially pure", has a much higher strength | |
than aluminum, which requires higher forces for machining and | |
increases even more the chances for overheating. | |
thaumasiotes wrote 23 hours 53 min ago: | |
> Like with aluminum, this high reactivity is masked in finite | |
products made of titanium, because any titanium object is | |
covered by a protective layer of titanium dioxide. | |
My understanding is that rust fails to protect iron the same | |
way. Is that right? If so, why the difference? | |
kergonath wrote 23 hours 10 min ago: | |
Yes, it is right. The difference is that in the case of | |
aluminium and titanium (but also stainless steel), the oxide | |
grows in a uniform way, covering all the metal. These | |
protective layers are very thin and act as barriers stopping | |
oxygen from reaching the metal underneath. | |
In case of iron, oxidation occurs at different points on the | |
surface and the oxide layer initially leaves most of the | |
metal exposed. The oxide is also not effective at stopping | |
oxygen, so the rust layers keeps growing until it forms | |
flakes that fall, exposing more of the metal. The process | |
repeats until all the metal is consumed. | |
mercurywells wrote 23 hours 16 min ago: | |
Once rust starts, it is porous & flaky and allows more oxygen | |
to infiltrate and hit the next layer of iron. The reason it | |
is porous & flaky is due to creating a mix of FeO and Fe2O3 | |
which have different crystal structures so it doesn't create | |
a nice protective barrier. | |
bluGill wrote 23 hours 22 min ago: | |
Rust can protect iron in that way, bluing is a common process | |
to create a protective rust coating. However rust is fragile | |
and often flakes off thus allowing the process to continue. | |
Other metals their oxide is strong enough to protect the pure | |
inner layers. | |
This depends on the alloy involved as well. In general | |
though rust is not a good iron protection. | |
zafka wrote 1 day ago: | |
Nitinol has been haunting me since 1977 or so. It is such a cool alloy. | |
When I first heard of it, very little had been done with it, and now it | |
is used in many areas. I have yet to come up with any killer use of it | |
on my own though...... | |
duffpkg wrote 1 day ago: | |
In "Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed", which is a | |
great read, there is discussion of the incredibly difficult time they | |
had setting up tooling for working with titanium. This remains largely | |
true today. Making things at any scale in titanium, while controlling | |
cost is very, very difficult. Even if the titanium itself is gotten | |
very cheaply. | |
monster_truck wrote 1 day ago: | |
Most of what they figured out about working with it is still very | |
close to the best we can even unreasonably manage | |
LasEspuelas wrote 1 day ago: | |
Everything is urgent: | |
"There is thus an urgent need to develop a high-speed and efficient | |
refining method to realize the mass production of low-cost Ti." | |
Aurornis wrote 1 day ago: | |
This is very cool indeed, but I laughed when I got to the conclusion: | |
> A limitation of this work is that the resulting de-oxygenated | |
titanium contains yttrium, up to 1% by mass; yttrium can influence the | |
mechanical and chemical properties of titanium alloy. After solving the | |
yttrium contamination problem⦠| |
So the process removes the oxygen but then adds yttrium to the metal in | |
significant amounts. Thatâs not quite the ultra pure titanium I was | |
promised in the headline. | |
As always, I hope someone figures out the rest of the problem space. | |
As-is, this looks like trading one problem for another. | |
adrian_b wrote 1 day ago: | |
Yttrium is a more benign contaminant. | |
Very small amounts of oxygen in titanium are enough to make it too | |
hard and too fragile for most applications. | |
Adding less harmful impurities to bind the more harmful impurities | |
that cannot be otherwise removed (a.k.a. gettering) has always been a | |
major purification technique, both in metallurgy and in semiconductor | |
technology. | |
Steel is purified in the same way from the more harmful impurities, | |
by adding other impurities like calcium, silicon or manganese or | |
rare-earth metals. | |
In some cases, the compounds that result from adding impurities may | |
be removed later, e.g. like slag floating on molten steel, but in | |
other cases they may remain in the metal or semiconductor that is the | |
desired end product. | |
It remains to be seen whether the extra yttrium and yttrium oxide | |
that remain in titanium are harmful enough to make it worth to | |
attempt to remove them somehow. In some cases they may even have | |
beneficial properties, though e.g. for dental implants I would want | |
commercially pure titanium that does not have any other metallic | |
impurities like yttrium (commercially pure titanium includes small | |
amounts of oxygen and of iron, both of which have no harmful effects | |
in living tissues). | |
maxerickson wrote 1 day ago: | |
Titanium dioxide is about 40% oxygen by mass. Converting that to 1% | |
of something else seems like it's doing something. | |
shakna wrote 1 day ago: | |
Isn't yttrium sometimes added to increase the strength of titanium, | |
anyway? | |
mmooss wrote 1 day ago: | |
> this looks like trading one problem for another. | |
Every choice trades one problem for another. At a minimum, the new | |
problem is the cost in resources - time, money, personal energy (and | |
in business, usually reputation risk and political capital) - but | |
usually the cost is much more than that, especially when looking at | |
alternative technical solutions. In advice to clients I always | |
present the options as the minimum trade-off (it's my job to minimize | |
it). | |
More generally, the question is, which scenario of outcomes do you | |
want? It could be the scenario with 1% yttrium is far better than the | |
one with oxygen, or that the ytrrium scenario has a very different | |
set of costs and benefits which make it valuable for certain needs | |
that the oxygen scenario doesn't fulfill. It could be that methods | |
for removing yttrium are already mature and only need to be applied | |
to this case. | |
But especially in this case, the report is about research & | |
development. If there were no more problems to solve then it wouldn't | |
be R&D. It's really self-defeating to criticize progress in R&D | |
because some problems remain. 'We scored a goal, but that's just | |
trading one problem for another - the other team has the ball!' | |
Aurornis wrote 1 day ago: | |
> Every choice trades one problem for another. | |
The problem in this case is that the headline claimed âultra pure | |
titaniumâ and the closing paragraph had a tiny oh-by-the-way | |
mention that the process contaminates the titanium with yttrium. | |
Which is to say, makes it anything but ultra pure. :) | |
> It could be that methods for removing yttrium are already mature | |
and only need to be applied to this case. | |
Sorry but no. Thatâs specially a problem they highlighted as | |
needing a solution. | |
mmooss wrote 1 day ago: | |
> Sorry but no. Thatâs specially a problem they highlighted as | |
needing a solution. | |
Do you know anything about it? As far as the article goes, they | |
just said it will be ready for production when the problem is | |
solved, not how hard it is. | |
gsf_emergency wrote 1 day ago: | |
I was more terrified by the yttrium fluoride. That rings a | |
pancreatic cancer bell very loudly. Additionally, you can be sure | |
that people who understand much more chemistry than biology (or | |
who might have accepted their own deaths) are going to make... | |
different tradeoffs | |
That said, I welcome others to look into substituting, eg, | |
aluminum for yttrium in these methods (since titalum is already a | |
thing) | |
adrian_b wrote 18 hours 52 min ago: | |
Aluminum would not be a substitute for yttrium. Aluminum can be | |
used to deoxidize less reactive metals, like iron. For a metal | |
like titanium, you need a metal that is much more reactive than | |
it. Yttrium is more reactive than magnesium, though less | |
reactive than calcium, which is why it has been chosen. | |
Moreover, aluminum is undesirable in titanium implants, even if | |
many surgeons without scruples have used cheaper Ti-Al-V alloys | |
taken from aviation suppliers, instead of more expensive alloys | |
designed specifically for compatibility with living tissues, | |
despite the fact that it was always pretty clear that such | |
Ti-Al-V alloys are not suitable for long-term implants. | |
Yttrium is also not desirable for implants, so the titanium | |
produced by this method is not good for implants, but it is | |
good for most other applications of titanium, where yttrium is | |
not harmful. | |
gsf_emergency wrote 9 hours 56 min ago: | |
Delving into the paper: Al has defo been used for deoxidizing | |
Ti but they claim it's "inadequate" | |
The stability of al oxyhalide with respect to al oxide and al | |
halide is the key here? Not sure if that has been | |
"adequately" explored either, especially in experiment | |
(For the sake of more collaborative conversations on HN, not | |
just dissfests :) | |
mmooss wrote 16 hours 12 min ago: | |
Where would yttrium be harmful, if you happen to know? | |
adrian_b wrote 6 hours 55 min ago: | |
It is likely that most of the titanium deoxidized with | |
yttrium would not be used as such, but it would be used for | |
producing titanium alloys. | |
For each kind of titanium alloy, depending on its chemical | |
composition and on its intended crystal structure, yttrium | |
may happen to be harmful or beneficial. Yttrium atoms are | |
significantly bigger than titanium atoms. This can | |
influence the crystal structure and the mechanical | |
properties of the alloys, even with only a small percentage | |
of residual yttrium. | |
Almost pure non-alloyed titanium (which normally contains | |
residual quantities of oxygen and iron) is used in | |
applications where chemical resistance is more important | |
than mechanical resistance, e.g. for medical implants, | |
vessels and pipes exposed to various chemicals, spoons, | |
metal parts that will be in contact with a human body, e.g. | |
rings or bracelets etc. | |
Yttrium may diminish somewhat the chemical resistance of | |
titanium for such applications, but the resistance might | |
still be adequate for many of these applications. | |
robocat wrote 1 day ago: | |
Grade 2 Sponge Titanium (USD/mt) = $6,087.03 | |
Yttrium: 28.9 USD/kg is 2890 USD/mt | |
So the 1% Yttrium might be financially reasonable (assuming extra | |
demand can be met). Prices from metal.com | |
NooneAtAll3 wrote 1 day ago: | |
what's mt? | |
cjbgkagh wrote 1 day ago: | |
It means metric ton, different to US and GB imperial tons. | |
Const-me wrote 1 day ago: | |
I think you made a mistake converting units, 28.9 USD/kg = $28900 | |
per ton. | |
two_handfuls wrote 1 day ago: | |
Thank you for the correction and also for helping me realize they | |
meant "metric ton" (t). | |
hinkley wrote 1 day ago: | |
Sounds like a âfind a useful titanium/??/yttrium alloyâ | |
situation. | |
Iâm shocked that yttrium is dearer than smelted titanium. | |
robocat wrote 1 day ago: | |
Those figures show Yttrium is about half the price of Titanium | |
metal. | |
I was shocked at how cheap Yttrium is (I searched for pricing | |
because I thought the 1% might be too expensive). Now I want to | |
buy some... | |
hinkley wrote 22 hours 39 min ago: | |
Ah, that was a typo. Not dearer. | |
robocat wrote 1 day ago: | |
Not cheap. | |
Ah shit. I can't shift zeros. 1% of 28900 $/mt is $289. [Yeah: | |
My initial assumption was that Yttrium is really expensive - | |
and it fucking is - I ignored my own smell test - I should have | |
caught my mistake]. | |
That is say 5% of the current final price of Ti (ignoring | |
purity) to end up with something with less oxygen but 1% fucked | |
with Yttrium. You can't just increase price by percentage | |
points for highly competitive commodities. You especially can't | |
add dependencies on elements that are in limited supply and | |
supply controlled/constrained by politics. | |
So this looks like another academic bullshit result that | |
totally ignores economical realities. | |
BurningFrog wrote 1 day ago: | |
"can influence" means either that science doesn't know yet how | |
yttrium influences the alloy properties, or that the journalist | |
didn't ask. | |
hinkley wrote 1 day ago: | |
Or the scientist read the room and decided being vague was the best | |
option. | |
foota wrote 1 day ago: | |
I'm not sure if it makes it easier, but there are some differences | |
between the high oxygen titanium alloy and titanium with some yttrium | |
in it that might make it easier to separate? | |
Presumably when you melt the titanium the yttrium doesn't react, | |
whereas the oxygen dissolved in the titanium alloy at room | |
temperature will form titanium dioxide when it's heated (if I'm | |
reading correctly). So maybe you could "just" separate the molten | |
metal by density afterwards? I'm not sure this would work though. For | |
one, you'd need to avoid re-introducing oxygen contamination, but I | |
guess you could do it under a vacuum (yes "just" spin the molten | |
metal at high speed in a vacuum)? | |
This would seem to me to beg the question of why not just grind up | |
the titanium in a vacuum to remove the oxygen and then melt it down, | |
so I might be missing something here. | |
LasEspuelas wrote 1 day ago: | |
Agreed. The original paper states that they have a technique to | |
remove oxygen from the surface of titanium. If that is the case, | |
grinding could be viable. How hard is it to grind titanium? | |
foota wrote 1 day ago: | |
I think the titanium on the outside in the slag is the easy part, | |
and not included in the 1% figure, which is on the inside. | |
freeone3000 wrote 1 day ago: | |
â¦Very hard. Itâs titanium. Every work process has to be done | |
with special carbide bits, at half speed, underwater. | |
hinkley wrote 1 day ago: | |
Tungsten carbide isnât it? | |
foota wrote 1 day ago: | |
Looks like they applied for a patent here: | |
[1]: https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2025... | |
jjcm wrote 1 day ago: | |
Surely this is something that will go down in price as energy costs do, | |
regardless of the yttrium approach, correct? With solar getting cheaper | |
and fusion on the horizon, wonât that address the problem as well? I | |
wonder if this intermediary step is necessary if so. | |
fnord77 wrote 1 day ago: | |
> fusion on the horizon | |
fusion is not on the horizon | |
simsla wrote 1 day ago: | |
It'll always be 20 years away until it's here. Will that be in 20 | |
or 200 years, who knows. | |
adastra22 wrote 1 day ago: | |
You should look again. There are a dozen different approaches that | |
have a good chance of crossing the threshold to commercially viable | |
fusion in the near term, and they are each very well funded. | |
dehrmann wrote 1 day ago: | |
It's 20 years away. | |
BirAdam wrote 1 day ago: | |
Maybe? If anyone has better knowledge on whether or not this is | |
legitimate, that would be cool to know. | |
[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/helion-energy-fusion-compa... | |
ted_dunning wrote 1 day ago: | |
Helion is legitimate and they have a very clever approach, but it | |
definitely still isn't a sure bet that they will succeed. | |
Electricniko wrote 1 day ago: | |
It is at sunrise and sunset. | |
jonasenordin wrote 1 day ago: | |
And it's actually a good thing that it hasn't come any closer. | |
guide42 wrote 1 day ago: | |
Best moments to watch the fission. | |
rjsw wrote 1 day ago: | |
How many times have you arrived at the horizon? | |
_aavaa_ wrote 1 day ago: | |
Oh it is, in the same way mirages appear on the horizon. | |
more_corn wrote 1 day ago: | |
In the same way the pot of gold is at the end of the rainbow. | |
Close enough to see, never close enough to reach. | |
steve_adams_86 wrote 1 day ago: | |
My 7 year old told me he found the pot of gold last year, so it | |
seems to me that we should be more optimistic about fusion | |
westurner wrote 5 days ago: | |
> Unfortunately, producing ultrapure titanium is significantly more | |
expensive than manufacturing steel (an iron alloy) and aluminum, owing | |
to the substantial use of energy and resources in preparing high-purity | |
titanium. Developing a cheap, easy way to prepare itâand facilitate | |
product development for industry and common consumersâis the problem | |
the researchers aimed to address. | |
"Direct production of low-oxygen-concentration titanium from molten | |
titanium" (2024) | |
[1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49085-4 | |
Animats wrote 1 day ago: | |
Any comments from someone in the metals industry? The paper shows | |
this process being done at lab scale. It needs to be scaled up to | |
steel mill size. How hard does that look? | |
digdugdirk wrote 1 day ago: | |
From someone in the product design/manufacturing space - this | |
wouldn't change much. The problem with titanium isn't the material | |
cost (which is expensive, but could be justified in a variety of | |
scenarios) but rather everything else about it. Its an absolute | |
pain in the rear to work with, your manufacturing base is tiny, | |
specialized equipment and tooling is needed, it makes tiny little | |
incendiary devices when being cut, etc. | |
Its cool, and it has plenty of applications where it is the only | |
choice. But those applications already use it, and lowering the | |
material cost isn't going to make more designers decide to just | |
start using it on a whim. | |
(PS - This could be more useful if titanium 3d printers start | |
becoming more accessible. But again, that's a low volume | |
manufacturing process so the material costs still don't play much | |
into final part cost.) | |
Animats wrote 15 hours 15 min ago: | |
With lower material costs, more mundane applications might | |
appear, but probably not all that many. 3D printed titanium | |
eyeglass frames are already a thing, though. | |
Here's three generations of Space-X's Raptor engine.[1] The last | |
one is mostly 3D printed. There are layers of different | |
materials, and one is a titanium layer. Notice how the plumbing | |
was simplified for each generation. | |
Rocket engines are mostly plumbing. The fuel is used to cool the | |
engine bell before it is used for power. Everything has cooling | |
cavities inside. All that interior geometry is ideal for 3D | |
printing. In the NASA glory days, those things were built by hand | |
welding large numbers of machined pieces into an engine. Look at | |
that Raptor engine on the right. Everything below the pumps is | |
all one big part. No joints, no welds, no brackets, no plumbing | |
fittings. Nice. | |
[1]: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/08/spacex-reveals-rap... | |
westurner wrote 1 day ago: | |
What a useful question though. I hadn't realized that the cost of | |
titanium is due to lack of a process for removing oxygen. | |
What is the most efficient and sustainable alternative to yttrium | |
for removing oxygen from titanium? | |
process(TiO2, â¦) => Ti, ⦠| |
westurner wrote 1 day ago: | |
From teh Gemini 2.5 Pro AI "expert", with human review: | |
> For primary titanium production (from ore): | |
Molten Salt Electrolysis (Direct Electrochemical Deoxygenation, | |
FFC Cambridge, OS processes, etc.) and calciothermic reduction in | |
molten salts | |
> They aim to [sic.] revolutionize titanium production by moving | |
away from the energy-intensive and environmentally impactful | |
Kroll process, directly reducing TiO | |
2 and offering the potential for closed-loop systems. | |
> For recycling titanium scrap and deep deoxidation: Hydrogen | |
plasma arc melting and calcium-based deoxidation techniques | |
(especially electrochemical calcium generation) are highly | |
promising. Hydrogen offers extreme cleanliness, while calcium | |
offers potent deoxidizing power. | |
... | |
> Magnesium Hydride Reduction (e.g., University of Utah's | |
reactor) | |
> Solid-State Reduction (e.g., Metalysis process) | |
Are there more efficient, sustainable methods of titanium | |
production? | |
Also, | |
TIL Ti is a catalyst for CNT carbon nanotube production; and, | |
alloying CNTs with Ti leaves vacancies. | |
meepmorp wrote 1 day ago: | |
> From teh Gemini 2.5 Pro AI "expert", with human review: | |
You don't know enough about the subject to answer the question | |
on your own, do you? So your "review" is really just cutting | |
and pasting shit you also don't understand, which may or may | |
not be true. | |
Thanks for your service. | |
mmooss wrote 1 day ago: | |
> with human review | |
What human? | |
more_corn wrote 1 day ago: | |
Just gotta solve the yttrium issue and itâs ready for prime time. | |
Maybe they could introduce a sort of spider to consume the | |
yttrium⦠| |
metalman wrote 1 day ago: | |
there may be no yttrium issue | |
from wiki: | |
Small amounts of yttrium (0.1 to 0.2%) have been used to reduce | |
the grain sizes of chromium, molybdenum, titanium, and | |
zirconium.[81] Yttrium is used to increase the strength of | |
aluminium and magnesium alloys.[15] The addition of yttrium to | |
alloys generally improves workability, adds resistance to | |
high-temperature recrystallization, and significantly enhances | |
resistance to high-temperature oxidation (see graphite nodule | |
discussion below).[68] | |
Yttrium can be used to deoxidize vanadium and other non-ferrous | |
metals.[15] Yttria stabilizes the cubic form of zirconia in | |
jewelry.[82] | |
Yttrium has been studied as a nodulizer in ductile cast iron, | |
forming the graphite into compact nodules instead of flakes to | |
increase ductility and fatigue resistance.[15] Having a high | |
melting point, yttrium oxide is used in some ceramic and glass to | |
impart shock resistance and low thermal expansion properties.[15] | |
Those same properties make such glass useful in camera | |
lenses.[51] | |
Medical | |
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