Titanium is corrosion-resistant, so it is often used in the chemical industry. In the past, stainless steel was used for the parts containing hot nitric acid in chemical reactors. Stainless steel is also afraid of the strong corrosive-hot nitric acid. This kind of parts must be replaced every six months. Titanium is used to make these parts, although the cost is more expensive than stainless steel parts, but it can be used continuously for five years, but it is much more cost-effective to calculate.
In electrochemistry, titanium is a one-way valve metal with very negative potential, and it is usually impossible to use titanium as an anode for decomposition.
The biggest disadvantage of titanium is that it is difficult to extract. The main reason is that titanium has a strong ability to combine with oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and many other elements at high temperatures. Therefore, whether in smelting or casting, people are careful to prevent these elements from "invading" titanium. When smelting titanium, air and water are of course strictly prohibited. Even the alumina crucible commonly used in metallurgy is also forbidden to use, because titanium will take oxygen from the alumina. People use magnesium and titanium tetrachloride to interact in an inert gas-helium or argon to extract titanium.
People take advantage of the extremely strong chemical ability of titanium at high temperatures. During steelmaking, nitrogen is easily dissolved in molten steel. When the steel ingot is cooled, bubbles are formed in the steel ingot, which affects the quality of steel. Therefore, the steel workers add titanium metal to the molten steel to combine with nitriding and become slag—titanium nitride, which floats on the surface of the molten steel, so that the steel ingot is relatively pure.
When a supersonic aircraft is flying, the temperature of its wings can reach 500°C. If a relatively heat-resistant aluminum alloy is used to make the wing, one to two or three hundred degrees will be overwhelming. There must be a light, tough, and high-temperature resistant material to replace the aluminum alloy, and titanium can meet these requirements. Titanium can withstand the test of more than one hundred degrees below zero. At this low temperature, titanium still has good toughness without being brittle.
The powerful absorption of titanium and zirconium on air can remove air and create a vacuum. For example, a vacuum pump made of titanium can pump air to only one part of ten trillion.
