IperionX wins US Air Force titanium recycling challenge

IperionX Limited, Charlotte, North Carolina, has won the U.S. Department of Defense’s National Security Innovation Network (NSIN) Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Grand Challenge contract. As a result, IperionX says it will be eligible to produce titanium metal powders from scrap materials and rejuvenate used or out-of-specification titanium powder for the AFRL.

IperionX says winning the Grand Challenge against a field of leading titanium industry participants is an important validation of its patented technologies to produce circular, low-carbon and low-cost titanium metal from 100 percent recycled titanium scrap or out-of-specification titanium powder feedstocks.

“Winning the Grand Challenge is an outstanding endorsement of IperionX’s patented titanium technologies,” IperionX CEO Anastasios Arima says. “Our leading technologies can efficiently recycle titanium scrap metal and metal powders at lower cost than existing processes, and we look forward to working closely with NSIN, AFRL and other Department of Defense agencies to qualify and rapidly deploy the use of circular titanium metal across key defense platforms.”

The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Department of Defense are accelerating the use of additive manufacturing to reduce long lead cycle times and to produce large volumes of complex parts for advanced weapons systems. According to IperionX, only 20 percent to 40 percent of titanium powder used in additive manufacturing ends up in fabricated parts. Titanium metal powders are typically reused a limited number of times before the quality is compromised by elevated contaminant levels or inferior powder morphology. The company adds that out-of-specification titanium powders increase the probability of defects and jeopardize the structural integrity of additively manufactured components.

IperionX’s technologies were developed by Dr. Zak Fang, and American professor of metallurgical engineering at the University of Utah, and the company says they uniquely position it to upcycle a wide variety of low-grade, high-oxygen titanium scrap which has historically been downcycled to lower value markets. The company says it is able to achieve greater yields of nearly 100 percent from low-grade scrap without the need for blending the scrap with high-grade primary metal.

Winning the Grand Challenge also complements the company’s project with Xenia, Ohio-based Materials Resources LLC, it says, to qualify titanium alloy powders for the U.S. Navy and test titanium flight critical metal replacement components for the U.S. Department of Defense.

The winner of the Grand Challenge is eligible for a contract award up to $500,000 across four phases, with IperionX successfully completing Phase 1 so far. The company says it will complete Phases 2 to 4 as part of routine production operations at its titanium pilot facility in Salt Lake City, Utah.

“The AFRL team is excited to work with IperionX on the next phase of the titanium recyclability Grand Challenge,” AFRL Materials Engineer Dr. Calvin Mikler says. “IperionX seemed to really understand the purpose of the Grand Challenge and pitched a unique strategy to deoxygenate and rejuvenate used titanium powders and scrap materials back into powder suitable for additive manufacturing of aerospace-quality parts. We can’t wait to see the results of all the hard work yet to come.”