Titanium History
Jan 19, 2024
The first titanium ore discovered was a black sand called titanium-iron sand, which was discovered by Reverend William Gregor in Cornwall in 1791. He analyzed it and deduced that it was composed of iron and oxides of an unknown metal and reported it to the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall.
In 1795, Martin Heinrich Klaproth, a scientist in Berlin, Germany, studied a reddish ore from Hungary called Schörl. It was a form of rutile (TiO₂), and Klaproth realized that it was an oxide of a previously unknown element, which he named titanium. When he was informed of Gregor's discovery, he studied titanium-iron sand and confirmed that it also contained titanium.
It was not until 1910 that M. A. Hunter, working for General Electric in the United States, produced pure titanium, achieved by heating titanium tetrachloride and sodium metal.
