Empire Metals has brought its titanium-processing research with Murdoch University into Australia’s Critical Metals for Critical Industries Cooperative Research Centre, adding government-backed research support to work on producing titanium metal directly from material derived from the Pitfield project.
The programme is examining molten-salt electrolysis and other metal-conversion technologies as alternatives to conventional titanium production routes. Empire’s immediate objective is to demonstrate that titanium dioxide produced from Pitfield can be converted directly into metal and establish a credible engineering pathway towards larger-scale and potentially continuous processing.
The first research phases are expected to conclude in early 2027. Work will focus on the suitability of Pitfield feedstock, electrochemical performance, and requirements for process scale-up rather than commercial metal production, leaving a substantial development gap between the current laboratory programme and an operating industrial plant.
Empire’s research has been accepted into the Critical Metals for Critical Industries CRC, which received A$53 million of Australian Government funding over ten years. The wider programme is intended to accelerate development and commercialisation of critical-metals refining technologies while building more domestic processing capability around Australian mineral resources.
The project is being carried out with Murdoch University’s Extractive Metallurgy research capability. The route under investigation uses high-temperature molten salts and electricity to remove oxygen from titanium dioxide, with renewable electricity forming part of the proposed processing concept.
The comparison is the Kroll process, which remains the established route for production of titanium metal. Conventional processing converts titanium-bearing feed into titanium tetrachloride before reduction with magnesium and subsequent separation and treatment, creating a proven but relatively complex manufacturing sequence.
Direct electrochemical reduction aims to remove some of those intermediate operations. Empire says molten-salt electrolysis has the potential to offer a more scalable and cost-effective route, particularly if it can eventually be adapted into a continuous process, although those benefits still have to be demonstrated beyond research scale.
Continuous operation would represent an important industrial step. An electrochemical process has to hold electrolyte composition, operating temperature, current density, electrode condition, feed behaviour, and product quality over extended production periods rather than simply generate an acceptable sample in a controlled laboratory run.
Titanium quality imposes another constraint. Aerospace, defence, medical, energy, and other demanding applications use tightly specified grades, making oxygen content, contamination, consistency, and subsequent refining or consolidation critical to the value of the final material.
A cheaper conversion step would therefore have limited significance if the resulting titanium required extensive downstream treatment or failed to meet the chemical and mechanical requirements of industrial customers. Scale-up work will have to examine product quality alongside energy consumption, throughput, materials handling, and equipment durability.
Pitfield gives the research programme an unusually large potential raw-material base. Empire’s current mineral resource estimate totals 8.16 billion tonnes grading 4.3% titanium dioxide, containing an estimated 349 million tonnes of TiO₂. Conventional processing testwork has already produced material grading 99.25% TiO₂.
The company is therefore investigating two distinct but connected propositions: producing a high-purity titanium dioxide product through a conventional flowsheet, and developing a more direct route from that material into titanium metal. The second option could move the project further along the value chain if the electrochemical work proves technically and commercially viable.
That distinction matters for Australia’s critical-minerals strategy. Extracting a large mineral resource does not guarantee that the higher-value stages of refining and metal manufacture will take place domestically. Processing technology, energy costs, capital requirements, skills, customer qualification, and existing international supply chains all influence where that value is ultimately captured.
Empire’s acceptance into the CRC provides access to a broader research and commercialisation framework rather than proving that a new titanium process is ready for deployment. Alternative routes still have to compete against an industry built around decades of experience with established titanium production methods.
The commercial hurdles will include cell design, refractory and electrode life, continuous feed and product removal, electricity consumption, process control, plant availability, and the ability to produce material consistently enough for qualification by demanding customers. Those requirements become considerably more difficult as equipment moves from laboratory scale into pilot and demonstration operation.
The research nevertheless gives Pitfield a downstream development route beyond titanium dioxide alone. Empire has a large defined resource and a high-purity intermediate product; the Murdoch programme is now testing whether that feed can support a shorter route into titanium metal.
Results expected in early 2027 should provide the next meaningful measure. Successful laboratory conversion will be useful, but the more important outcome will be a defensible scale-up strategy showing how molten-salt electrolysis could move from experimental equipment towards a continuous process capable of producing titanium with repeatable industrial quality.
