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Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla... by aurizon on Thursday October 21, 2021 @05:01PM (#28950795)
Looking back at Aluminium, it was once very costly - there was no economical way to extract it from clay by traditional metallurgy. When the Hall process of electrolytic extraction from molten salts was invented = huge price decline, and useage. Titanium is in a similar position, fairly common, but hard to extract economically. I hope there is a low cost electrolytic to recover Titanium found some day, as it is a very good material for all manner of uses at a lower price. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall%E2%80%93H%C3%A9roult_proc...

There is a new Titanium process, not as cheap as I would like, but a lot better than we have now. https://www.nature.com/articles/d42473-021-00166-8

Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla... by zardo on Thursday October 21, 2021 @07:33PM (#28952134)
>Looking back at Aluminium, it was once very costly - there was no economical way to extract it from clay by traditional metallurgy.

Supposedly Napoleon III had aluminum tableware for his most honored guests, and gold for everyone else.

Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla... by aurizon on Thursday October 21, 2021 @09:02PM (#28952663)
Yes, It was very hard to liberate Aluminum from oxygen with his level of chemistry...
Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla... by pitaj on Friday October 22, 2021 @12:12AM (#28953689)
Titanium is extremely difficult to machine, which is part of why titanium parts (like those used in airplanes) are so expensive.