Halide salt has been tested as a reductant for producing titanium powder directly from TiCl_4. From the results of thermodynamic investigation for several rare earth chloride systems, DyCl_2 was found to be used for the reduction of TiCl_4 instead of the conventional metallic reductant. When TiCl_4 was fed into molten salts containing DyCl_2 at 1073K, titanium powder of several ten micron meters in diameter was obtained. In contrast to the sponge titanium produced by the conventional Kroll process, the present new process using a halidothermic reduction in a reactive molten salt appears to be suitable for producing metal powder. From the thermodynamic point of view, the resultant DyCl_3 can be reduced to DyCl_2 by magnesium. By utilizing the multivalent halide redox couple, some possible ways of titanium powder production directly from TiCl_4 by magnesiothermic reduction are shown to be feasible. This can also be applied to the development of a new continuous titanium reduction process.
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