User:Barnsey1999/sandbox

TiRO is a proprietary process invented by the CSIRO has the added advantage over most new novel titanium production processes in that it uses the established Kroll process chemistry, but incorporates kinetic conversion of titanium tetrachloride with magnesium to produce titanium metal in a continuous fashion. The CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, owns the TiRO process and is part of an effort to convert the nation's world ranking titanium bearing mineral sand into a value adding metal producer. TiRO takes advantage of CSIRO’s expertise in fluidised bed technology (where solid particles suspended in a gas act like a fluid), process engineering and computerised modelling have been applied to build a pilot-scale fluidised bed reactor, and a continuous vacuum separation process. The pilot plant is scalable to commercial production facility size. It is envisaged that the TiRO™ technology will facilitate growth of down-stream direct manufacturing businesses in Australia. A unique continuous process The TiRO™ process is continuous; this provides a number of benefits in comparison with the conventional Kroll and batch process: Low working capital Continuous monitoring of product Low energy consumption Low touch labor

These benefits make the TiRO™ process attractive in terms of efficiency and production costs. The TiRO™ process conditions can be adjusted to generate titanium sponge or powder with particles tailored in shape and size to suit differing downstream applications. This is an advantage where sponge could be fed continuously into a cold hearth step or in the fabrication step, where the powders can be consolidated directly, thereby avoiding a further remelt step. The powder product is suited to downstream applications such as: hot isostatic pressing metal injection moulding titanium sheet manufacture by consolidation Additive Manufacturing including cold spray Scale-up to commercial production

CSIRO engineers have scaled the process from 200 g/hour of titanium to 2.0 kg/hour of titanium. This pilot plant is also intended to produce larger quantities of sample to facilitate third-party evaluation and the development of consolidation/fabrication technologies.

The project currently stands poised for scale-up to commercial-scale production.