Abstract:

　　In 1791,British clergyman W.Gregor discovered a new metallic element in black magnetite.In 1795,the German chemist M.H.Klaproth discovered the element while studying rutile and named it Titans,after the Greek god.In 1910,American scientist M.A.Hunter made pure titanium by reducing TiCI with sodium for the first time.In 1940,the Luxembourg-based scientist W.J.Kroll obtained pure titanium by reducing TiCl with magnesium.Since then,magnesium reduction(also known as klauer's process)and sodium reduction(also known as Hunter's process)have become the industrial methods for producing titanium sponge.In 1948,the United States produced 2t sponge titanium by magnesium reduction method,and has since reached the industrial production scale.Subsequently,The United Kingdom,Japan,the former Soviet Union and China have also entered the industrial production,among which the main titanium production countries for the former Soviet Union,Japan and the United States.

　　Titanium is a new metal,because it has a series of excellent characteristics,is widely used in aviation,aerospace,chemical,petroleum,metallurgy,light industry,electric power,seawater desalination,naval vessels and daily life appliances and other industrial production,it is known as the modern metal.Titanium metal production from 1948 until now only half a century of history,it is accompanied by aviation and aerospace industry and the development of the new industry.Its development has suffered several ups and downs because of titanium's association with aircraft manufacturing.But in general,titanium development rate is very fast,it exceeds any other non-ferrous metal development rate.This can be seen from the development of titanium sponge industry in the world:the production scale of titanium sponge was 60kt/a in the 1960s,1lOkt/a in the 1970s,130kt/a in the 1980s,and has reached 140kt/a in 1992.The actual output reached the highest level in history in 1990,105kT/a.

　　After entering the 1990s,the market was weak in the first few years due to the decrease of military titanium and the selling of sponge titanium stocks by some countries such as Russia.In 1995,the titanium market began to pick up,mainly due to the B777 and other civil aircraft and golf clubs and other civil titanium increased greatly,in 1996,the demand for titanium reached a new high point.Experts predict that demand for titanium will continue to grow substantially in the next few years.At present,the main obstacle to titanium application is high price.It can be expected that with the progress of science and technology and the continuous improvement of titanium production process,the expansion of production capacity and management level of enterprises,and further reduce the cost of titanium products,a wider titanium market will be developed.(to be continued)