Hunter process
The Hunter process was the first industrial process to produce pure ductile metallic titanium. It was invented in 1910 by Matthew A. Hunter, a chemist born in New Zealand, who worked in the US. The process involved reducing titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) with sodium (Na) in a steel bomb at 700–800 °C.
Prior to the Hunter process, all efforts to produce Ti metal afforded highly impure material, often titanium nitride (which resembles a metal). The Hunter process was replaced by the more economical Kroll process in the 1940s. In the Kroll Process, TiCl4 is reduced by magnesium.
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