DuPont will expand TiCl₄ capacity

DuPont will spend $30 million to build a titanium tetrachloride purification unit in New Johnsonville, Tenn., by summer 2008. DuPont will supply up to 100 million lb per year of TiCl₄ to a titanium metal plant being built by Allegheny Titanium in Tooele County, Utah. DuPont makes TiCl₄ as an intermediate in the production of the white pigment titanium dioxide. "While we're focused on titanium dioxide as our core business, we are aggressively expanding into a number of related technologies such as this," says Rick Olsen, general manager of DuPont Titanium Technologies. DuPont and Honeywell recently developed a process to make a titanium powder that can be fabricated into titanium metal parts. And DuPont is a part of a consortium seeking to make titanium metal powder out of titanium dioxide.