Titanium+History

Titanium was discovered by William Gregor (1761-1817) in 1791. But it was named by the german chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth. The New Zealand chemist Matthew A. Hunter made the first pure titanium in 1910. Pure titanium wasn't produced until 1950, after a luxembourg inventor Wilhelm J. Kroll developed a way to extract the metal from ilmenite.

Titanium is found combined with pratically all rocks, sand, clay and other soils. It is also present in plants, animals, natural waters, deep-sea dredgings, stars, and meteorites. Pure titanium is about half dense as Iron, less than twice as dense as aluminium. It can be polished to a high luster, and it has a very low electrical and magnectic attraction.

Titanium often occurs in the ores //ilmentite// and //rutile//. Ilemenite is mined mainly in Australia, Canada, India, Malaysia, Norway, South Africa, Ukraine, and the United States. Rutile is mined mainly in Australia and South Africa.

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