Sustainability

The FFC process has a very low environmental impact and provides substantial environmental and sustainable benefits over conventional processes:

Carbon Footprint

The FFC process has only one by-product, carbon dioxide. A joint Metalysis and Carbon Trust report in 2004 concluded that the FFC Process has a carbon footprint that is less than 50% of the Kroll process.

Should Metalysis be able to introduce an inert anode into the process, the technology would generate oxygen as opposed to carbon dioxide at the anode and, if a sustainable energy source is coupled to the technology, a near nil carbon footprint is feasible.

Lower Temperatures

The process operates at between 800°C and 950°C. Whilst the Kroll process operates at temperatures of around 1,000°C, the post processing steps to produce titanium alloys require temperatures that are considerably higher than this. For instance to alloy titanium with aluminium and vanadium requires the melting of all three metals
at 1,890°C.

Less Toxic Reagants

Conventional processes use hazardous and difficult reagents. In contrast the only reagent used in the FFC process is salt, which is no more toxic than table salt and is recycled.

Sustainability

The FFC process directly produces metal powders or lightly sintered solids that can be relatively easily converted into powder. Powder metal forming techniques such as Metal Injection Moulding, Laser Forming, Hot and Cold Isostatic Pressing have yields in excess of 90%. By contrast, in the aerospace sector where complex shapes are formed from solid sheet or bar products, yields of 10% are not uncommon.