The road bike with 3D-printed titanium components that the CSIRO helped produce for Perth-based Flying Machine. Photo: CSIRO <\/p>\n
Titanium has been used in jewellery and bicycles, 3D printing and heavy industrial parts, even in the cyborg exoskeleton in the 1987 film Robocop, now moves are afoot to establish a new refining process that could make Australia a titanium leader. <\/p>\n
According to Australia's peak research organisation, the CSIRO, Australia has the biggest deposits of ilmenite and rutile titanium's base minerals - in the world. It extracts and refines the material, but doesn't process it in large quantities, missing out on a lucrative revenue stream. <\/p>\n
Extracting and refining the mineral sand into the metallic form is labour intensive and wasteful, but titanium's strength-to-weight ratio, corrosion resistance and biocompatibility make it ideal for aerospace, medical and sport applications. <\/p>\n
CSIRO's John Barnes would like to see Australia step up its role in titanium processing. <\/p>\n
Currently 95 per cent of the mineral sand mined is used in an oxide form, the pure white colour crucial in products from paint to cosmetics. <\/p>\n
Advertisement <\/p>\n
The small fraction that is converted to metal goes through a process that is mostly unchanged since the 1950s. It involves very environmentally unfriendly chemicals and as John Barnes, director of high performance metals at the CSIRO's manufacturing flagship explains, expensive. <\/p>\n
\"When you're machining away 90 per cent of what you want there's a bit of a perverse relationship.\" <\/p>\n
\"The industry average is about 11 to one [raw material versus finished product], so you're wasting well over 90 per cent of what you're buying and it goes back into a recycle stream that doesn't have enough value,\" Mr Barnes says. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Read more here:<\/p>\n
Australia could be a leader in titanium processing: CSIRO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The road bike with 3D-printed titanium components that the CSIRO helped produce for Perth-based Flying Machine. Continue reading