IperionX Limited has been awarded a contract for up to US$47.1 million in funding by the US Department of Defense (DOD) to strengthen the US Defense Industrial Base by accelerating development of a resilient, low-cost, and fully-integrated US mineral-to-metal titanium supply chain.

This partnership represents a combined investment of US$70.7 million between IperionX and the DoD to fund a two-phase development program over a two-year period. The agreement aims to strengthen US titanium production capabilities, supporting national security and economic resilience.

As part of the initial phase, the DOD has obligated US$5 million through the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) program and IperionX will contribute US$1 million, to expedite the Titan Critical Minerals Project in Tennessee to shovel-ready status, an important milestone in securing a new domestic source of titanium, rare earths and zircon critical minerals.

The remaining US$42.1 million awarded under the contract is expected to be obligated by the DOD over the duration of the agreement, with the funds to be applied to facilitating vertical integration and increased titanium production capacity at IperionX’s Titanium Manufacturing Campus in Virginia.

Titanium is a critical material for the aerospace, defense, automotive, space, and consumer industries, but its high cost and reliance on foreign supply chains have limited its broader adoption. IperionX’s Hydrogen-Assisted Metallothermic Reduction (HAMR) and Hydrogen Sintering and Phase Transformation (HSPT) technologies provide a pathway to produce low-cost, high-performance titanium.

The HAMR process is an energy-efficient thermochemical process that can produce either Commercially Pure (CP) or alloyed titanium powders. This process can take almost any form of titanium or scrap titanium alloy feedstock and produce titanium powders at very low energy intensity, enabling the potential for low-cost, low-carbon emission production in a sustainable closed loop. The majority of the energy and emissions savings comes through eliminating the need to chlorinate TiO₂ to make TiCl₄ and removing the need for vacuum distillation after the reduction of TiCl₄.

The HAMR process uses conventional powder metallurgy processing steps to control the size of the particles, add alloying elements, and ensure that the result is high quality titanium powder. Typically, at this stage, titanium powders produced via the conventional Kroll process or other related technologies result in a titanium powder that is high in oxygen content. This is where the HAMR process comes in.

These high-oxygen titanium powders are processed via the HAMR process technology, which reduces oxygen levels below current industry requirements. The process destabilizes Ti-O using hydrogen, making it possible to turn the reduction of TiO₂ with Mg from being thermodynamically impossible to thermodynamically favored. This allows TiO₂ to be reduced and deoxygenated directly by Mg to form TiH₂ with low oxygen levels that can meet the needs of the industry. TiH₂ is then further processed to titanium metal through industry standard approaches.

The HSPT process is an innovative powder metallurgy process developed by Dr. Zak Fang and his team at the University of Utah. HSPT enables the low-cost production of near-net-shape titanium parts with similar properties to traditional forged or wrought parts.

In traditional wrought manufacturing, multiple energy intensive and expensive forging and machining steps are required to produce a titanium bar, plate, or sheet, and the subsequent machining required to make a part by subtractive manufacturing results in significant levels of scrap generation.

While powder metallurgy and additive manufacturing generate less waste and can be lower-cost alternatives to traditional manufacturing, titanium parts manufactured by these alternative approaches typically have poor mechanical properties and often rely on expensive post-sintering thermal mechanical processing (TMP). In contrast, HSPT enables the use of powder metallurgical processes to obtain wrought-like microstructures in near-net-shapes without TMP.

By combining powder metallurgy or additive manufacturing with the HSPT processing technology, IperionX can produce near-net-shape titanium parts with an ultra-fine-grain microstructure. These parts have the potential to be produced at a fraction of the cost and with greatly reduced scrap generation, while achieving properties similar to those produced by forging.