Uncovering spatiotemporal evolution of titanium in China: A dynamic material flow analysis

Abstract

Titanium has become a strategic metal due both to its current use in coatings industry and increasing applications in aerospace and renewable energy. China is the largest titanium producer and consumer. In order to move toward carbon neutrality ambition, it is critical to uncover China's overall titanium utilization. Under such a circumstance, this study employs a dynamic material flow analysis method to reveal the evolution trend of China's titanium cycle from 2005 to 2020. The main results show that: (1) China's titanium ore is large in volume but low in grade, ore reserves are closely related with the primary origins, while the secondary origins are scattered; (2) The import dependence of high-grade titanium concentrate exceeded 86%, which indicates that the domestic resource endowment cannot meet with the soaring demand; (3) China's cumulative titanium stock had increased by 70 times during the study period, of which the potential dissipative stock increased from 93.37 kilotons (Kt) in 2005 to 1069.75 Kt in 2020; (4) The regenerative path of titanium scraps is remelting before ingot casting and cascade recovery during manufacturing, and the utilization of reclaimed titanium resource increased from 1.31 Kt in 2005 to 89.57 Kt in 2020 due to technological innovation. These findings reflect that China should not only pay attention on domestic titanium resources and substantial environmental burden associated with titanium mining, processing and utilization, but also seeking new high-grade titanium ores, encourage titanium recycling and diversify titanium resource import countries.