Why is titanium an ideal material for the chemical industry?
Aug 12, 2025
Titanium metal, with its excellent corrosion resistance and mechanical properties, is widely used in many fields. In chemical applications, titanium can replace stainless steel as a corrosion-resistant material, which is crucial for extending equipment life, reducing costs, preventing pollution, and improving productivity. In recent years, the scope of titanium use in my country's chemical industry has continued to expand, and its usage has increased year by year. Titanium has become one of the primary corrosion-resistant materials in chemical equipment. As a corrosion-resistant structural material used in chemical plants, titanium has become an ideal material for chemical equipment.
Major Applications of Titanium in the Chemical Industry: Chlor-alkali Industry
Titanium's earliest application in the chemical industry was in the chlor-alkali industry. This includes the production of chlorine, chlorine oxides, pesticides, and bleaching powder. In chlorine production, titanium equipment and piping account for nearly a quarter of the total mass. Examples include metal anode electrolyzers, ion-exchange membrane electrolyzers and anolyte pumps, shell-and-tube wet chlorine coolers, chlorine wastewater dechlorination towers, chlorine gas cooling and scrubbing towers, refined brine preheaters, and vacuum dechlorination pumps and valves.
Soda Ash Industry
In soda ash production, titanium is primarily used in crystallizer external coolers, distillation tower ammonia condensers, ammonium chloride mother liquor heaters, plate heat exchangers, parapet heat exchangers, carbonization tower cooling tubes, CO2 turbine compressor rotors and impellers, and alkali pumps.
Vacuum Salt Production Industry
Titanium ammonia evaporators, preheaters, precoolers, flanges, tubesheets, pump housings, and elbows are used.
Petrochemical Fiber
Currently, both imported and domestically designed and manufactured petrochemical fiber companies producing polyester, nylon, and vinylon have adopted some titanium equipment. The application of titanium equipment has played a positive role in the development of my country's chemical fiber production, particularly in ensuring safe, stable, and continuous production, improving product quality, preventing premature corrosion and failure of stainless steel, extending equipment life, reducing downtime and maintenance, and improving overall economic benefits.
Fine Chemical Industry
The raw materials used in propylene oxide plants are highly corrosive. The two main raw materials used in PO production are liquid chlorine and propylene. These highly corrosive media create a foundation for corrosion in PO production equipment and piping. Under these process conditions, metals such as carbon steel, aluminum, copper, nickel, and stainless steel are all vulnerable to corrosion. Only titanium is an ideal corrosion-resistant metal material.
Inorganic Salt Industry
Inorganic salts primarily include chlorates and potassium salts. Domestic sodium chlorate production has grown rapidly in the past two years, with total production capacity exceeding 1 million tons, and approximately 500,000 tons under expansion or in the early stages of development. Chlorate titanium equipment primarily includes electrolytic cells, titanium anodes, reactors, and evaporators. Approximately 15 tons of titanium are required for every 10,000 tons of sodium chlorate produced.
Potassium salt products include potassium chloride, potassium sulfate, potassium nitrate, and potassium carbonate. Currently, China's total potassium nitrate and potassium carbonate production capacity is approximately 600,000 tons. Evaporators, preheating tanks, and coolers in potassium nitrate and potassium carbonate production require titanium equipment.
Other Industries
Titanium dioxide-Titanium is used in membrane concentrators, calciner feed pipes, centrifuge distributor plates, and other applications. Urea-Titanium is used in urea synthesis tower linings, ammonia strippers, general decomposition tower heaters, methylamine pump inlet and outlet valves and springs, high-pressure mixers, etc.
Dyes-Titanium is used in coil heat exchangers, absorption towers, purification tower nozzles, fans, water ring vacuum pumps, filters, etc.
Nitric Acid-Titanium is used in nitric acid evaporators, nitrogen oxide tail gas preheaters, nitric acid steam preheaters, gas scrubbers, rapid coolers, condensers, turbo blowers, pumps, valves, pipes, etc.
Properties of Titanium Alloys
1. Low density significantly reduces string loads, especially for ultra-deep oil well pipes.
2. High strength, including tensile strength, creep strength, and fatigue strength.
3. Excellent corrosion resistance, especially for seawater corrosion.
4. Wide operating temperature range. Conventional titanium alloys have operating temperatures from -269°C to +600°C. 5. Large elastic deformation capacity. Titanium alloys have high yield strength and low elastic modulus (E), making them ideal for parts such as springs and, more importantly, for extended-reach horizontal wells.
6. Low coefficient of expansion. This property makes oil equipment more adaptable to temperature fluctuations and reduces internal stress in structural components.
7. Non-magnetic, meeting the requirements for normal use of detection, communication, and control devices in various equipment.
8. Excellent processing performance. Titanium alloys generally exhibit excellent processing properties in casting, forging, welding, and 3D printing, which is often a key factor in selecting the right material for various projects.
Titanium alloy pipes, flanges, and various bolting accessories are increasingly widely used in the oil industry. As titanium processes and technologies improve, the use of various titanium alloy oil casing and other equipment will also become increasingly widespread.
The company boasts leading domestic titanium processing production lines, including:
German-imported precision titanium tube production line (annual production capacity: 30,000 tons);
Japanese-technology titanium foil rolling line (thinnest to 6μm);
Fully automated titanium rod continuous extrusion line;
Intelligent titanium plate and strip finishing mill;
The MES system enables digital control and management of the entire production process, achieving product dimensional accuracy of ±0.01μm.
