Titanium

===Titanium is a lustrous, white metal when pure. Titanium minerals are easily found. The metal has a low density, good strength, is easily fabricated, and has excellent corrosion resistance. The metal burns in air and is the only element that burns in nitrogen. It is marvellous in fireworks.=== Here is a video with an example of Titanium ignition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ-q3ms8f-s&feature=related

Titanium is resistant to dilute sulphuric and hydrochloric acid, most organic acids, damp chlorine gas, and chloride solutions. Titanium metal is considered to be physiologically inert. Titanium is present in meteorites and in the sun. Some lunar rocks contain high concentrations of the dioxide, TiO2. Titanium oxide bands are prominent in the spectra of M-type stars.

Titanium in a crystal bar.

Titanium metal is used in automotive applications, particularly in automobile or motorcycle racing, where weight reduction is critical while maintaining high strength and rigidity. The metal is generally too expensive to make it marketable to the general consumer market, other than high-end products, particularly for the racing/performance market. Late model Corvettes have been available with titanium exhausts, and racing bikes are frequently outfitted with titanium mufflers and titanium fastener kits (i.e., nuts and bolts), to reduce sprung weight while still being able to withstand the stresses of racing. Titanium alloy is used for the connecting rods in the engine of the 2006 and later Corvette Z06. Other automotive uses include piston rods and hardware (bolts, nuts, etc.). Very exotic performance vehicles often make greater use of the material, and custom factory (non-homologated) racing vehicles make extensive use of it.


 * ~ Isotope ||~ Atomic mass (ma/u) ||~ Natural abundance (atom %) ||~ Nuclear spin (I) ||~ Magnetic moment (μ/μN) ||
 * 46Ti || 45.9526294 (14) || 8.25 (3) || 0 ||  ||
 * 47Ti || 46.9517640 (11) || 7.44 (2) || 5/2 || -0.78848 ||
 * 48Ti || 47.9479473 (11) || 73.72 (3) || 0 ||  ||
 * 49Ti || 48.9478711 (11) || 5.41 (2) || 7/2 || -1.10417 ||
 * 50Ti || 49.9447921 (12) || 5.18 (2) || 0 ||

Seven pounds of Titanium is worth $95.50. That is as close to $100 as I could find.


 * The History of Titanium**

Titanium was discovered included in a mineral in Cornwall, England, in 1791 by amateur geologist and pastor William Gregor, the then vicar of Creed parish. He recognized the presence of a new element in ilmenite when he found black sand by a stream in the nearby parish of Manaccan and noticed the sand was attracted by a magnet. Analysis of the sand determined the presence of two metal oxides; iron oxide (explaining the attraction to the magnet) and 45.25% of a white metallic oxide he could not identify. Gregor, realizing that the unidentified oxide contained a metal that did not match the properties of any known element, reported his findings to the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall and in the German science journal //Crell's Annalen//. Around the same time, Franz Joseph Muller produced a similar substance, but could not identify it. The oxide was independently rediscovered in 1795 by German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth in rutile from Hungary. Klaproth found that it contained a new element and named it for the Titans of Greek mythology. After hearing about Gregor's earlier discovery, he obtained a sample of //manaccanite// and confirmed it contained titanium. The processes required to extract titanium from its various ores are laborious and costly; it is not possible to reduce in the normal manner, by heating in the presence of carbon, because that produces titanium carbide. Pure metallic titanium (99.9%) was first prepared in 1910 by Matthew A. Hunter by heating TiCl4 with sodium in a steel bomb at 700–800 °C in the Hunter process. Titanium metal was not used outside the laboratory until 1946 when William Justin Kroll proved that it could be commercially produced by reducing titanium tetrachloride with magnesium in what came to be known as the Kroll process. Although research continues into more efficient and cheaper processes (e.g., FFC Cambridge), the Kroll process is still used for commercial production.[|[][|3][|]][|[][|2][|]]

Links:http://www.webelements.com/titanium/