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 United States. The process involves reducing titanium tetrachloride with sodium in a batch reactor with an inert atmosphere at a temperature of 1,000°C. Dilute hydrochloric acid is then used to leach the salt from the product.
Prior to the Hunter process, all efforts to produce Ti metal afforded highly impure material, often titanium nitride. The Hunter process was replaced by the more economical Kroll process in the 1940s. In the Kroll process, TiCl4 is reduced by magnesium.
