Titanium Sponge Plant
Titanium Sponge Plant of India is located at Kerala Minerals and Metals Ltd (KMML), Chavara, Kollam district of Kerala. Titanium Sponge Plant is a manufacturing plant which produces titanium sponge, a material used in the space programme, aeronautics, light defence vehicles, and more. The plant in India is the only one in the world which can undertake all the different activities of manufacturing aerospace grade titanium sponge under one roof[1]. The material is an alloy product which is produced through Kroll process which includes leaching or heated vacuum distillation to make the metal almost 99.7% pure.[1]
History
[edit]The importance of establishing domestic titanium production was realised[by whom?][when?] due to the country's large demand and import of titanium and magnesium alloys from countries like China, Russia and Japan. Former President of India and scientist, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam highlighted the issue in a speech at the Kerala Legislative Assembly.[2] The plant was fully commissioned in August 2015.[3]
Establishment
[edit]The successful implementation[vague] was achieved after about twenty years of continuous research by the Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory (DMRL under DRDO). The project is funded by Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC under ISRO).[1][4]
Ranking
[edit]India is the seventh country in the world to have such a complex structured TSP which has the technology to make titanium sponge[5], and the first to have done all the process under one roof in indigenous manner. The company, Kerala Minerals and Metals Ltd. (KMML), has also won awards for commercialising the technology.
Design and capacity
[edit]The plant has an intricate design to carry out realisation of Titanium alloy wrought products and fabrication of hardware.[2] Work is being done actively to increase the capacity of the TSP for the proposed 10000 TPY[expand acronym]. A memorandum of understanding has also been signed by the KMML with Steel Authority of India (SAIL) for a joint venture to prepare titanium sponge at large scale. India has the third largest reserves of Titanium containing minerals, and was the sixth largest country by Titanium production in 2013. However, the high purity Titanium sponge (defined as containing at least 99.7% Titanium) as raw material is still imported for aerospace applications from countries like Japan, Russia and China.[5] Using the indigenously made titanium sponge, VSSC realized the aerospace-grade alloy, having formula Ti6Al4V, at Mishra Dhatu Nigam (Midhani) in Hyderabad.
Future prospects
[edit]Proposals for future work include magnesium recovery from MgCl2 (magnesium chloride) to set up an additional facility on similar lines, as well as to expand titanium production capacity from 500 MT to 1000 MT.[5]
Applications
[edit]The material produced by the plant is useful for liquid propellant tanks for launch vehicles, inter tank structures, gas bottle/liners and interface rings for satellites.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d "ISRO's titanium sponge plant in Kerala fully commissioned". timesofindia-economictimes. Archived from the original on August 18, 2015. Retrieved 2015-11-01.
- ^ a b "Indigenous Titanium Sponge Plant operational - ISRO". www.isro.gov.in. Archived from the original on 2015-11-18. Retrieved 2015-11-01.
- ^ "ISRO's titanium sponge plant in Kerala fully commissioned". timesofindia-economictimes. Archived from the original on August 18, 2015. Retrieved 2015-11-01.
- ^ "Titanium sponge plant to open in India in July". Interlink Metals. 2012-06-22. Retrieved 2015-11-01.
- ^ a b c "Soon, space programmes will use indigenously made titanium sponge". The Hindu. 2015-08-12. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2015-11-01.