Enhanced Titanium Sintering and Nitriding Metallurgical Processes using Solar Concentrated Energy

This proposal aims at developing Titanium solar powder metallurgy by creating a gas/vacuum chamber usable inside a solar furnace telescopic solar dish. Nitriding and Sintering will take place inside the chamber using titanium and titanium powder compacts using concentrated solar energy (CSE). A parametric study will be carried out to investigate the effect of the process parameters on material properties of the final product. The process parameters will be optimized based on the results of the parametric study. It is expected that isotropic shrinkage of compacted titanium powder will be enhanced in the vacuum furnace during solar sintering. Moreover, the possibility to perform nitriding of titanium with respect to medium and large scale production will be also tested. If successful, this will lead to new and innovative scientific and technological results in terms of product quality as well as energy utilization. Further, the technological basis for Solar powder metallurgy of titanium will be established as a seed for the future of industry on Earth and also for Moon and Mars colonisation.