Sponge titanium is a raw material for titanium processing materials. Generally, it is a light gray particle with a clean surface and no visible inclusions. It also includes defective sponge titanium blocks, such as burnt sponge titanium blocks, oxidized sponge titanium blocks with obvious dark yellow and bright yellow marks, oxidized and nitrogen rich sponge titanium blocks with dark yellow and bright yellow marks, sponge titanium blocks with obvious chloride residues, and sponge titanium blocks with residues.
Sponge like titanium metal produced by metal thermal reduction method. The purity% (mass) is generally between 99.1 and 99.7. The total content of impurity elements (mass) is 0.3-0.9, impurity element oxygen (mass) is 0.06-0.20, hardness (HB) is 100-157, and it is divided into five levels from WHTiO to MHTi4 based on purity. The main raw material for producing industrial titanium alloys. Sponge titanium production is the fundamental link of the titanium industry, which is the raw material for titanium materials, titanium powder, and other titanium components. Transforming ilmenite into titanium tetrachloride and placing it in a sealed stainless steel tank filled with argon gas to react with magnesium metal yields sponge titanium. This porous "sponge titanium" cannot be directly used, and it needs to be melted into liquid in an electric furnace to be cast into titanium ingots.