ALPHA RESOURCES™

‘Green Pickle’

Kurt Faller, the president and chief executive officer of MetCon, discussed how “Electrochemical Processing Solves Environmental Pickling Challenges.” Faller said MetCon was founded to commercialize a breakthrough application of electrochemistry: controlled metal surface reactions by applying highly specific electrical signals in specialty electrolytes. He said MetCon’s patents cover a broad range of electrolytes and the company’s industrial scale operation employs a citric acid-based electrolyte.

Faller said MetCon’s “Green Pickle” technology controls surface reactions with specific electrical signals. The system offers consistent, reproducible, digitally controlled reactions. The spent acid is categorized as fully non-hazardous and can be treated in-house with sodium hydroxide to raise pH to local sewer authority specifications. By contrast, he said HF or HF+HNO3 “historically are the only acids used to pickle or chemical mill titanium, and are among the most dangerous acids known.”

MetCon’s modifying rectifier outputs enable range of titanium surface modifications. “Alpha case removal is equivalent to HF-HNO3 pickling, but the reaction controlled by rectifier,” Faller said. “No adiabatic heating; loads run back-to-back without a chiller or cooling period.” The uniform chemical milling can deliver titanium sheet and plate chemical milling into final gauge (12.7 microns), and can operated as a fully automated system. Faller said that the MetCon system has been proven with more than 20 million pounds processed. “MetCon now offering technology licenses and is developed for intermediate conditioning.

Notes on HAMR

Z. Zak Fang, a professor in the Department of Metallurgical Engineering at the University of Utah, presented information on using Hydrogen Assisted Magnesiothermic Reduction (HAMR) of TiO2 to produce high performance, low cost titanium. Fang explained that the challenge for producing high performance low cost titanium is that conventional wrought titanium is too expensive, which conventional powder metal suffers from either a low performance or high cost conundrum. Low cost high performance titanium requires a holistic approach: a low cost primary metal, titanium sponge or powder;