Thermodynamic Investigation of Titanium Hydride Formation from Reduction of Titanium (Ⅳ) Chloride with Magnesium Hydride in Presence of Hydrogen Atmosphere

¹ School of Materials and Mineral Resources Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Nibong Tebal
² Mineral Research Centre, Mineral and Geoscience Department Malaysia, Ipoh, Perak
³ Nanomaterials Research Group, School of Chemical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia

¹ Corresponding author: srsheikh@usm.my

Abstract

Thermodynamic assessment and experimental investigation for formation of titanium hydride (TiH₂) from reduction of titanium tetrachloride (TiCl₄) with magnesium hydride (MgH₂) were carried out under hydrogen atmosphere. In this method, TiH₂ production at low temperature was investigated, which can be used for further dehydrogenation process in titanium powder metallurgy. The effects of temperature, time, amount of titanium trifluoride (TiF₃) as catalyst, and ball milling time of MgH₂ on reduction process were evaluated. The range of each parameters were set to 250-350°C for temperature, 2-4 hr for reaction time, 4-10 wt% for TiF₃, and 1-2 hr for ball milling time. The phase transformations after reduction process were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) analyziz. The morphology of powders was analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results showed that titanium trichloride (TiCl₃) was formed as major product in experiments for the above conditions. However, with increasing the reaction time above 10hr, characterization study of the final products confirmed the formation of TiH₂ as major product. Our findings indicated that producing of TiH₂ from reduction of TiCl₄ with MgH₂ at low temperature was feasible and could lead to low cost synthesis method for TiH₂ for titanium powder production.