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Reaction Of Titanium Subhydride With Multiple Passivating Gasses, Erik C. Strobert Jr

Chemical and Biological Engineering ETDs

Sandia National Laboratories has used substoichiometric titanium hydride as a pyrotechnic fuel for decades. Production of titanium subhydride requires partial dehydriding of titanium hydride powder and subsequent chemical passivation to render the resultant bare titanium surface nonreactive and the powder non-pyrophoric. Novel passivation techniques, using a gas other than air, have been suggested in the past but have never been investigated. This work examines the reaction kinetics of titanium subhydride with three passivating agents, nitrogen, oxygen, and propane. These passivation experiments took place under isothermal conditions (420 ˚C) with varied dehydriding and passivation time periods. It was found that the …