104 • Marine Minerals: Exploring Our New Ocean Frontier 



but recycling could increase if PGM prices esca- 

 late and if collection and waste disposal costs are 

 reduced. It may be possible to reprocess as much 

 as 200,000 troy ounces of PGMs annually from 

 used automotive catalysts (about 3 percent of 1986 

 U.S. consumption).'" Recycling of electronic scrap 

 has collection and processing problems similar to 

 recycling of automotive catalysts. 



Substitution opportunities for PGMs in automo- 

 tive catalysts are limited. Moreover, there is little 

 incentive to seek alternatives for catalysts in the pe- 

 troleum industry because a high proportion of 

 PGMs used is currently recycled. Similarly, in the 

 chemical and pharmaceutical industry, the value 

 of the product far exceeds the return on investment 

 for developing non-PGM substitutes, which usu- 

 ally are less efficient. It is possible to reduce the 

 amount of PGMs used for electrical and electronic 

 applications by substituting gold and silver for plati- 

 num and palladium. 



Titanium (Ilmenite and Rutile) 



Properties and Uses 



Titanium is used as a metal and for pigments. 

 Ninety-five percent of world production is used for 

 white titanium dioxide pigment. Its high light 

 reflectivity makes the pigment valuable in paints, 

 paper, plastics, and rubber products. About 65 per- 

 cent of the titanium pigments used domestically are 

 for paint and paper. 



Titanium alloys have a high strength-to-weight 

 ratio and high heat and corrosion resistance. They, 

 therefore, are well-suited for high technology ap- 

 plications, including high performance aircraft, 

 electrical generation equipment, and chemical proc- 

 essing and handling equipment. 



Although only 5 percent of all titanium goes into 

 metal, it is an important material for aircraft en- 

 gines. About 63 percent of the titanium metal con- 

 sumed in the United States in 1985 was for aero- 

 space applications. The remaining 37 percent was 

 used in chemical processing, electric power gener- 

 ation, marine applications, and steel and other al- 

 loys. Titanium carbide is used in commercial cut- 

 ting tools in combination with tungsten carbide. 



Organotitanium compounds are used as catalysts 

 in polymerization processes, in water repellents, 

 and in dyeing processes. 



National Importance 



Over 80 percent of the titanium materials used 

 in the United States are imported. The major 

 sources of U.S. raw material imports are Canada 

 and Australia. Other suppliers include the Republic 

 of South Africa and Sierra Leone. The United 

 States also imported about 5,500 tons of titanium 

 metal in 1984 (about 5 percent of consumption), 

 mainly from Japan, Canada, and the United King- 

 dom. Titanium's importance to the military and 

 to the domestic aerospace industry makes this metal 

 a second-tier strategic material ("strategic to some 

 degree") with some small measure of potential sup- 

 ply vulnerability." The current National Defense 

 Stockpile goal for titanium sponge is 195,000 tons, 

 and the current inventory is about 26,000 tons. The 

 stockpile goal for rutile (used for metal production 

 as well as pigments) is 106,000 tons, with the cur- 

 rent inventory at 39,186 tons. 



Domestic Resources and Reserves 



The United States has reserves of about 7.9 mil- 

 lion tons of titanium in the form of ilmenite and 

 200,000 tons in the form of rutile, both located 

 mainly in ancient beach sand deposits in Florida 

 and Tennessee and in ilmenite rock (table 3-12). 

 The domestic reserve base of 23 million tons of 

 titanium contains 15.5 million tons of ilmenite, 6.5 

 million tons of perovskite (not economically mina- 

 ble), and 900,000 tons of rutile. Total resources (in- 

 cluding reserves and reserve base) are about 103 

 million tons of titanium dioxide, made up of 13 mil- 

 lion tons of rutile, 30 million tons of ilmenite, 42 

 million tons of low-titanium dioxide ilmenite, and 

 18 million tons of perovskite.^" These resources in- 

 clude large quantities of rutile at concentrations of 

 about 0.3 percent in some porphyry copper ores 

 and mill tailings."' 



''Platinum, MCP-22 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Mines, 

 1978), p. 13. 



"Office of Technology Assessment, Strategic Materials: Technol- 

 ogies to Reduce U.S. Import Vulnerability, p. 52. 



°°E. Force and L. Lynd, Titanium Mineral Resources of the United 

 States — Definitions and Documentation, Geological Survey Bulletin 

 1558-B (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1984), 

 p. B-1. 



"E. Force,, "Is the United States of America Geologically Depen- 

 dent on Imported Rutile?," Proceedings of the 4th Industrial Min- 

 erals International Congress, Atlanta, GA, 1980. 



