Commercial Pure Titanium Powders Obtained by Hydrogen Embrittlement

High strength combined with superior corrosion resistance and low density of titanium alloys is extremely important to chemical, automobile, aeronautic, and biomedical industries. However, titanium production and processability are expensive. In the methods currently used, much effort has been expended on reducing the cost of titanium parts. One cost reduction alternative has been to produce near-net-shape parts by the powder metallurgy technique. The methods currently used to produce titanium powders are the plasma rotating electrode and hydride-dehydride processes. This article deals with commercial pure titanium powders, obtained from scraps of forming and machining processes, using the hydride-dehydride (HDH) process. The microstructure, morphology, and composition of powder were characterized by XRD and SEM analyses. The results showed that the HDH process combined with mechanical milling enables the production of titanium powder particle sizes in the range of 7 to 150 microns, which can be used in the conventional powder metallurgy and metal injection moulding techniques. (Author)