Cheaper, lighter, stronger: pick ... well, all three, actually

mrmeval found this article about an MIT-founded startup, Avanti Metail, that has a process for refining titanium by electrolysis.

Currently, titanium is refined using the Kroll process, which is slow, expensive, consumes large amounts of magnesium, and produces large amounts of toxic waste, yielding titanium at a cost of $40 per pound and rising, about six times the cost of stainless steel.  There is also a solid-electrolyte method known as the FFC Cambridge process, but the titanium still requires further processing after extraction and the process is very inefficient.  Avanti's new process operates by electrolysing a molten mixture of titanium oxide and magnesium or calcium oxide, and yields pure moltem titanium which can be tapped directly off the bottom of the reactor vessel without a need for further refining.  The electrolyte is not consumed.

Avanti predicts they can cut the cost of titanium by a factor of ten.

Nabil Elkouh, president of Erigo Technologies, a consulting firm that puts together deals between researchers and investors, and who's an advisor to Avanti, cautions that their projection of producing titanium at one-tenth of the current cost, may be optimistic at this point. "They may have something great, but it may take four years," he says. "It may not ever be one-tenth the cost -- but what if it were half the cost? That'd still be great."