| Almost everything about the article is wrong, oversimplified, or misleading. Take this paragraph, for instance: > But despite its abundance, it's only recently that civilization has been able to use titanium as a metal (titanium dioxide has been in use somewhat longer as a paint pigment). Because titanium so readily bonds with oxygen and other elements, it doesn’t occur at all in metallic form in nature. One engineer described titanium as a “streetwalker," because it will pick up anything and everything. While copper has been used by civilization since 7000 BC, and iron since around 3000 BC, titanium wasn’t discovered until the late 1700s, and wasn’t produced in metallic form until the late 19th century. As this is basically a bunch of bullet points in paragraph form, it'll be easier to handle if we break it down: > But despite its abundance, it's only recently that civilization has been able to use titanium as a metal (titanium dioxide has been in use somewhat longer as a paint pigment). The same also applies to aluminum, magnesium, nickel, etc. > Because titanium so readily bonds with oxygen and other elements, it doesn’t occur at all in metallic form in nature. The same also applies to aluminum, magnesium, and even iron. (I mean, there's some meteoric iron, but it's very rare.) Pure metals are very rare in nature. What distinguishes iron and copper from aluminum and titanium is the energy required to split the oxide into metal. > One engineer described titanium as a “streetwalker," because it will pick up anything and everything. Titanium is not more reactive than aluminum and it's far less reactive than magnesium. In fact, it's slightly less reactive than iron overall. (i.e., more chemically stable under normal conditions and in contact with common acids.) > While copper has been used by civilization since 7000 BC, and iron since around 3000 BC, titanium wasn’t discovered until the late 1700s, and wasn’t produced in metallic form until the late 19th century. This has everything to do with the temperature required to separate the metal from the oxygen atoms binding it, and nothing to do with anything else. What's more, it applies even more strongly to aluminum, which was discovered in 1825 -- three decades after the discovery of titanium. (1791.) So there's absolutely nothing unique about titanium in this regard. I could go on. But basically this is an "I hecking love science" article that barely scratches the surface of the subject -- and still manages to be subtly misleading. |
the oxides of aluminum, magnesium, and nickel were not in use as paint pigments
> What distinguishes iron and copper from aluminum and titanium is the energy required to split the oxide into metal. (...) Titanium is not more reactive than aluminum
the particularly relevant issue here, as i understand it, is that titanium has a stable carbide, which prevents you from reducing it carbothermically; you end up with titanium carbide instead of titanium metal. aluminum's carbide is unstable even in water, while iron's carbide is mechanically strong but still easy to reduce to iron with air. copper's carbide is poorly characterized and even more unstable, and it even occurs native
there are other things that titanium reacts more strongly with than aluminum does. titanium tetrachloride, for example, which is mentioned in the article, isn't a mere salt like normal chlorides; it's a volatile fuming liquid, because titanium forms covalent bonds with the chlorine like a motherfucking nonmetal. you can argue about whether this makes it more or less reactive than aluminum in this context; the reaction produces more energy per metal atom but less energy per chlorine atom
this kind of dirty trick is why titanium wasn't isolated until decades after the creation of metallic calcium, sodium, potassium, aluminum, and even the isolation of some of the rare earths
so i think the characterization in the article is fair