The stratum ten kilometers thick on the earth's surface contains six thousandths of titanium, which is 6 1 times more than copper, ranking tenth in the earth's crust (the order of elements in the earth's crust: oxygen, silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium, sodium, potassium, magnesium, hydrogen and titanium). Grab a handful of soil from the ground, and it contains a few thousandths of titanium, which is more than one in the world.
Hundreds of millions of tons of gravel on the earth, two minerals heavier than gravel, titanium and zirconium, are mixed in the gravel. After millions of years of day and night elutriation of seawater, the heavier ilmenite and zircon sand were washed together, and pieces of titanium ore and zirconium ore layers were formed along the long coast. This seam is a kind of black sand, usually a few centimeters to dozens of centimeters thick.
In the earth's crust, titanium reserves are second only to iron, aluminum and magnesium, ranking fourth. Because titanium has the characteristics of high melting point, low specific gravity, high specific strength, good toughness, fatigue resistance, corrosion resistance, low thermal conductivity, good resistance to high and low temperatures, and low stress under the condition of rapid cooling and rapid heating, its commercial value was recognized by people in the 1950s, and it was applied to aviation, aerospace and other high-tech fields. With the continuous promotion of chemical industry, petroleum, electric power, seawater desalination, construction, daily necessities and other industries, titanium has been paid more and more attention, known as "modern metal" and "strategic metals", and is an indispensable strategic material to improve the level of national defense equipment.
There are two important indicators to measure the scale of a country's titanium industry: sponge titanium output and titanium material output, in which sponge titanium output reflects raw material production capacity and titanium material output reflects deep processing capacity. Titanium industry has formed five major producers and consumers in China, the United States, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Japan and Europe.
China titanium industry started from 1954, and gradually developed through experimental research, fixed-point layout of industrial production, application and promotion and continuous technical progress. Especially since 2 1 century, China titanium industry has made rapid development under the impetus of national demand and reform and opening-up policy.