Unlocking The Science Of Magical Metals

"Titanium, named after the giant Titan in Greek mythology, is the strongest metal on earth. You've probably heard of titanium at some point in your life, and while it's expensive for what it is today, it's not a rare metal - it's just expensive to mine and produce.

You may know about artificial joints, golf clubs or submarines made of titanium, but did you know that titanium is also found in white cake frosting? Well, here's an interesting story about this famously tough metal!

01This "divine" metal wasn't forged until the 20th century.

As early as 1791, an amateur English mineralogist and church minister, William Gregor, found some strange black sand in a stream near the town of Cornwall. Some of this black sand was magnetic, which Gregor concluded was iron oxide, but the other substance was a mystery. Of course, it must have been another oxide, but it was not in the textbooks of the Royal Geological Society at the time.
Titanium oxide powder

In 1795, the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth rediscovered this strange oxide and named it titanium oxide after the pre-Olympian gods of Greek mythology. Although pure titanium was discovered at the end of the 18th century, it wasn't until 1910 that Matthew Hunt, a chemist at General Electric in the U.S., was able to isolate it from its oxide, and in 1910, Hunt worked out how to strip the silvery metal from its oxide at high temperatures and pressures in a sealed "bomb".

02 It's the lightest, strongest metal on Earth.

Pure titanium has the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any metal on Earth. It is as strong as steel, but 45% lighter.
Titanium Fixtures

This extraordinary strength-to-weight ratio has made titanium and titanium alloys (mixtures of titanium and other metals) the material of choice for airplane engines and fuselages, rockets, missiles and even spacecraft. In modern industry, any equipment that can't do without metal parts needs to be supplied with materials that are as tough and lightweight as possible.
Titanium engine blades

For example, the Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger jet, contains up to 77 tons of titanium in its fuselage. Most of it is in its huge engines. Thanks to an innovative metallurgical technique from the 1930s called the Knox process, the commercial forging of titanium began in the 1940s and 1950s. It was first used in military aircraft and submarines (mainly in the United States and Russia), and then, in the 1960s, in commercial airplanes.

03 Titanium is more resistant to corrosion

Corrosion is an electrochemical process that slowly destroys most metals over time. When metals are exposed to oxygen, either in air or underwater, the oxygen grabs electrons and produces what we call "oxides" of the metal. One common corrosive oxide is iron oxide, or rust.

But not all oxides corrode the underlying metal. For example, titanium is covered with a thin layer of titanium dioxide (TiO2), which actually protects the underlying titanium from any type of corrosion, including galvanic, microbial and stress corrosion.
Titanium's natural corrosion resistance makes it an ideal material not only for aircraft, but also for undersea components exposed to highly corrosive seawater. Ship propellers are almost exclusively made of titanium, as are ships' internal ballast and piping systems and onboard hardware exposed to seawater.

04 Titanium can be implanted in every part of the human body, from head to toe.

The thin layer of titanium dioxide that protects titanium from corrosion also makes it safe for implantation in the human body. Titanium is completely "biocompatible," meaning it is non-toxic, does not cause allergies or rejection, and can even fuse with human tissue and bone.
Titanium Cranial Plates

Titanium is an excellent surgical material for bone and joint implants, skull plates, dental implant roots, artificial eyes and earrings, heart valves, spinal fusions and even urethral strictures. Studies have shown that titanium implants trigger the body's immune system to grow bone directly on the surface of the titanium, a process known as osseointegration.
Titanium Hip Joints

Titanium is used in hip replacements and fracture pins because of its unrivaled strength-to-weight ratio, which makes human implants lighter, and its elasticity, which is the same as that of human bone.

05 Titanium's role in sports equipment

As the price of pure titanium fell in the late 20th century, manufacturers began to find more commercial uses for this wonder metal. Titanium's light weight and high strength made it ideal for the manufacture of sporting goods.