Another compound of commercial significance is titanium tetrachloride, a colourless liquid used to obtain titanium metal.
Commercial production of titanium involves reduction of titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) with sodium.
By far the most important of these is in the Kroll process for reducing titanium tetrachloride to titanium metal.
Ziegler employed a catalyst consisting of a mixture of titanium tetrachloride and an alkyl derivative of aluminum.
The product depends on the chloridizing reaction taking place, with magnesium dichloride, for example, forming as a watery liquid and titanium tetrachloride coming off as a gas.
The metal was isolated in pure form (1910) by the metallurgist Matthew A. Hunter by reducing titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) with sodium in an airtight steel cylinder.
Polypropylene and high-density polyethylene are prepared by use of Ziegler catalysts, which are initiators composed of organometallic compounds and metallic halides, such as triethylaluminum and titanium tetrachloride.
High-density polyethylene (HDPE) is obtained under conditions of coordination polymerization initiated by a mixture of titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) and triethylaluminum [(CH3CH2 3Al].
Titanium tetrachloride, the starting material for TiO2 pigments and titanium metal, serves the same function for many titanium compounds and is used as a catalyst as well.
Many conservatives laughed at the idea of the federal government treating carbon dioxide the way it treated asbestos, hexachlorobenzene, titanium tetrachloride, or any of dozens of other chemicals with scary-sounding names.
Nevertheless, Hunter did indicate that the metal had some ductility, and his method of producing it by reacting titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) with sodium under vacuum was later commercialized and is now known as the Hunter process.
