CHARLOTTE, N.C.—IperionX Limited (NASDAQ: IPX, ASX: IPX) is pleased to announce that it has won the prestigious R&D 100 award for its innovative Hydrogen Assisted Metallothermic Reduction (HAMR) titanium production process.
IperionX and the inventor of the technology, Dr. Zak Fang, have been recognized for HAMR – a low cost and sustainable process for producing titanium metal powder used for both additive manufacturing and traditional powder metallurgy manufacturing methods.
Titanium is a superior metal in many applications to both steel and aluminum, but its cost often limits its use to high performance applications. The breakthrough discovery made by Dr. Fang and the team at the University of Utah – that hydrogen can destabilize the bond between titanium and oxygen – led to the development of the innovative HAMR process.
The patented HAMR technology can produce titanium metal from either 100% recycled titanium scrap or from titanium minerals. The resulting high quality titanium powder can be used in additive manufacturing or powder metallurgy to deliver products in a broad range of demanding applications, including aerospace, defense, and biomedical, with dramatically lower costs and increased sustainability.
For more than 50 years, a large amount of effort has been applied to develop a new technology to replace the incumbent Kroll process in order to lower the cost and environmental impacts associated with the production of titanium metal. To date, these efforts have failed to meet quality requirements, cost reduction needs or commercial scalability.
In contrast to the Kroll process, the HAMR process uses low-temperature processing, cuts direct carbon emissions and substantially reduces the cost of producing titanium metal. When using 100% titanium scrap as feedstock, the HAMR process can create a circular supply chain for this advanced metal that is critical to America’s economic future and national security.
Commercialization of the HAMR process has been successfully proven, with high-quality titanium powder currently being produced at IperionX’s Industrial Pilot Facility in Salt Lake City, UT. To meet the increasing demand for sustainable and lower cost titanium metal, IperionX has advanced plans to build a larger titanium production facility in Halifax County, Virginia. Once commissioned, IperionX has well-defined plans to rapidly scale the capacity of this innovative titanium production facility in a low risk, modular fashion.
R&D 100 Awards
The R&D 100 Awards is the only global science and technology awards competition that recognizes new commercial products, technologies and materials for their technological significance.
The R&D 100 Awards are recognized in industry, government, and academia as a mark of excellence for the most innovative ideas of the year. Awards are based on the technology’s technical significance, uniqueness, and effectiveness when compared to competing technologies.
Since 1963, R&D 100 awards have been granted for breakthrough technologies including Polacolor film, the flashcube, the digital wristwatch, antilock brakes, the automated teller machine, the liquid crystal display, the halogen lamp, the fax machine and HDTV.
Anastasios (Taso) Arima, IperionX CEO said:
“It is pleasing that Dr. Zak Fang, his team at the University of Utah, and IperionX have been recognized for the development and commercialization of the HAMR technology to produce low cost, sustainable titanium metal powders, highlighting an important contribution to innovation and the significant progress made to develop and commercialize this truly revolutionary titanium technology.”
About IperionX
IperionX aims to become a leading American titanium metal and critical materials company – using patented metal technologies to produce high performance titanium alloys, from titanium minerals or scrap titanium, at lower energy, cost and carbon emissions.
Our Titan critical minerals project is the largest JORC-compliant mineral resource of titanium, rare earth and zircon minerals sands in the U.S.A.
IperionX’s titanium metal and critical minerals are essential for advanced U.S. industries including space, aerospace, defense, consumer electronics, hydrogen, electric vehicles and additive manufacturing.
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