The Mechanism of Titanium Production by Electrolysis of Fused Halide Baths Containing Titanium Salts

Abstract

Titanium was produced by electrolyzing a molten bath of a sodium and potassium chloride mixture containing potassium fluotitanate, KsTiFe, and sodium fluotitanate, Na2TiF6. The formation of trivalent titanium double fluorides of sodium and potassium always preceded the production of metallic titanium during the electrolysis. These new trivalent titanium compounds were positively identified as K2NaTiFe, K3TiF‘, and Na3TiFe. Free metallic sodium was deposited at the same time as titanium when using a cooled cathode. This fact together with the measured polarization voltage and the presence of trivalent titanium compounds indicate that production of metallic titanium proceeds by secondary reactions in two steps: first, tetravalent titanium is reduced to the trivalent state; second, trivalent titanium is finally reduced to metallic titanium. © 1957, The Electrochemical Society, Inc. All rights reserved.