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TITANIUM: the strength for the 21st Century


The advances in the last century made many things possible. Science has reached a high level of progress, which has beneficiate the industry and the people in general.

Titanium is just an example of this evolution of Science. Titanium is an element from the periodic table. Its number is 22 and its symbol is Ti.

Believe it or not, Titanium was discovered by the Reverend William Gregor in 1791. He named this element menachite. Four years later, the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth recognized this element as a new one and decided to give the Latin word for Earth to this new element: Titan.

Finally, in 1910, the first sample of pure Titanium was prepared. Mathew A. Hunter heated the substance TiCl4 with sodium in a steel bomb at 700 - 800ºC. And in 1946, titanium started to be used outside laboratories.

Characteristics of Titanium


Titanium has some characteristics that must be emphasized:
  • Corrosion resistant, even for chlorine and sea water
  • Almost resistant as platinum
  • It is as strong as steel, but 45% lighter
  • It is 60% heavier than aluminum, but twice strong

Applications of Titanium


The development and improvement of the Science made the use of titanium much popular that ever imagined its first discoverers. These days, many of daily-use objects are made by titanium or simply have a small part of it in its composition.

Here are some of the most frequent applications of titanium in the daily-use objects:
  • Paints
  • Toothpaste
  • Paper
  • Plastics
  • Aircraft
  • Naval ships
  • Spacecraft
  • Laptop computers
  • Watches
  • Jewelry
  • Dental implants
  • Those are just some of the many uses that titanium has in our days.

    Some precautions with Titanium


    Although titanium can be perfect used in the daily life, there are some situations when titanium can be dangerous. And when these situations happen, there are not many things one can do in order to avoid them.

    Here is just two of the most common situation when it comes of hazard related to the use of titanium:
    • When titanium is under a metallic powdered form, it poses an extremely hazard fire and if heated it can cause a huge explosion, which no regular methods used to extinguish fire are effective in this situation.
    • Salts of titanium are also considered to be pretty harmless.