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What the name
means: Titanium is named after the
Greek mythological children of Uranus and
Gaia, the Titans.
Who identified
titanium? A Cornish churchman,
William Gregor, was the first to recognise
evidence of the new element in rocks from
the Menachan Valley in 1791. He wasn't too
confident about his find but he named the
possible new element menachin. It was a
German scientist, Martin Klaproth, who, in
1795 made the same observations when
studying certain mineral samples from
Poland. Klaproth gave this new
element the name titanium. In 1825 Jöns
Jakob Berzelius, working in Sweden, managed
to extract an impure sample of titanium. In
1887, Lars
Fredrik Nilson and Otto Pettersson managed
to isolate a 95% pure sample but it was not
until 1910 that Matthew A. Hunter,
working in the USA, produced titanium metal
with 99, 9% purity.
About titanium:
Titanium is shiny, lighter than
steel but much stronger. It is never found
as the free element in nature, but minerals
containing titanium are common; in fact,
titanium is the ninth most common metal in
the Earth’s crust. Titanium has been
detected in the Sun and in meteorites. It
has been found in Moon-rock brought back by
the Apollo mission spacecraft. It is also
found in the human body and in plant
material!
Titanium oxide is pure
white and is used as a pigment in paints.
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