IperionX (NASDAQ: IPX, ASX: IPX) announced the successful operational validation of its continuous titanium production furnace, with the system achieving a sixfold increase in throughput volume and a 75% reduction in energy intensity compared to previous batch processes.
The company said its hydrogen magnesiothermic reduction (HAMR) titanium production platfor, ‘GenX’, has been successfully validated through the first four production campaigns, completed on the commercial-scale system at its Virginia R&D facility.
GenX validation, the company said, opens a pathway to a step change in titanium production economics. Moving beyond the batch model used in conventional Kroll titanium production, continuous processing has the potential for higher throughput, significantly lower unit costs, improved equipment utilization and reduced processing time, IperionX said.
Considered a critical mineral by the US, EU and Canada because it is essential for defense, aerospace, medical, and industrial technologies, titanium has a unique strength-to-weight ratio and corrosion resistance with few substitutes.
Titanium is used in two distinctly different forms: as titanium dioxide (TiO2) for pigments and as titanium metal alloyed for aerospace applications.
The United States consumes over 31,000 metric tons of titanium for aerospace applications annually, but currently has zero domestic production of titanium sponge, which is the raw metal required to melt and alloy the material.
IperionX’s GenX system processed more than 500 kg of titanium powder across four separate continuous runs totaling 41 hours, at an average rate of approximately 12 kg per hour, it said.
In August, the U.S. Army awarded IperionX its second Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract for domestic titanium for defense applications.
The company’s second SBIR contract enables qualifying US Government agencies to place project-specific orders collectively capped at $99 million.
The contracts support equipment and manufacturing systems to expand IperionX’s domestic titanium powder-to-part manufacturing capacity.
“Achieving continuous primary titanium production has long been the ultimate aspiration for the titanium industry,” IperionX CEO Taso Arima said in a news release.
“IperionX’s GenX process is a continuous titanium production platform that is more efficient to operate and easier to scale. These first results exceeded our expectations: more than 500 kilograms of recycled titanium powder processed across four separate runs, with every sample meeting its relevant oxygen specification,” he said.
“Substantially lower magnesium, hydrogen and power consumption at steady state, together with processing throughput increasing by six times, give us a strong basis for industrial development.”
Arima said the next step is the engineering and economic evaluation of the first industrial-scale production line, and the company aims to establish a scalable platform for expansion that lowers production costs and brings titanium within reach of a broader range of applications.
