IperionX Limited has announced a strategic partnership with Heroux-Devtek to establish a 100 per cent recycled titanium supply chain, leveraging scrap titanium metal from the aerospace sector.

Currently, less than 20 per cent of titanium secondary resources can be recycled. This is due to the product after remelting exhibiting high oxygen content because titanium combines with oxygen easily. As a result, pristine titanium scraps with high production cost turns to down-graded titanium ingot or they are simply used as feed material for the ferrotitanium alloy production line.

Consequently, it has been a challenge for the entire titanium industry to develop a sustainable recycling method for titanium scraps.

IperionX Limited’s technologies can upcycle high-performance titanium alloys, such as Ti-5553 and Ti-10-2-3 — known for their enhanced fracture toughness and strength without the need for a re-melt process. The method requires less energy, reduces costs, produces zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions and utilises 100 per cent scrap titanium as feedstock.

Heroux-Devtek will supply IperionX with Ti-6AI-4V alloy scrap metal, a byproduct from the company’s landing gear manufacturing process, which IperionX will transform into low-carbon titanium using its patented titanium processing technologies. The end product will be suitable for a variety of future applications.

Titanium’s unparalleled strength, lightweight properties and exceptional corrosion resistance make it indispensable to the aerospace industry.

Its usage in large commercial aircraft has surged over the past two decades, now constituting approximately 15 per cent of the weight of modern unladed aircraft.

Historically, titanium production has relied on the ‘Kroll Process’ since the 1940s, but this method is not only energy-intensive and costly but also results in significant greenhouse gas emissions.

Only 20 to 40 per cent of titanium powder used in additive manufacturing ends up in fabricated parts, and these titanium powders are typically reused only a limited number of times before the quality is compromised by elevated contaminant levels or inferior powder morphology.

If they are out-of-specification, the probability of defects increases and jeopardises the structural integrity of additively manufactured components.

However, new technologies offer a pathway to significantly lower cost, and lower carbon, titanium metal powders for titanium components, allowing the upcycling of a wide variety of low-grade, high oxygen content titanium scrap which has historically been downcycled to lower value markets.