In 1791, the Reverend William Gregor, an English clergyman and mineralogist, reported that he had discovered a magnetic black sand near the beaches of Cornwall, England. The mineral was named menachanite after the local parish of Menaccan. A few years after Gregor's discovery, M.H. Klaproth, a German chemist, separated TiO2 from the mineral rutile. Klaproth named the new element titanium after the giants of Greek mythology. However, it was not until 1910 that M.A. Hunter, an American chemist, produced pure titanium.
Titanium is a hard, silvery-gray metallic element. Its atomic number is 22…