Hunter process

The Hunter process was the first industrial process to produce pure ductile metallic titanium. It was invented in 1910 by Matthew A. Hunter, a chemist born in New Zealand, who worked in the US. The process involved reducing titanium tetrachloride (TiCl₄) with sodium (Na) in a steel bomb at 700–800 °C.

Prior to the Hunter process, all efforts to produce Ti metal afforded highly impure material, often titanium nitride (which resembles a metal). The Hunter process was replaced by the more economical Kroll process in the 1940s. In the Kroll Process, TiCl₄ is reduced by magnesium.