Titanium product collection in a plasma reactor

Claim 1

A process for reducing a metal from a chloride salt; comprising the steps of: (a) striking an electric arc in an axial gap between the electrode of an arc heater; (b) introducing a pressurized gas or gas mixture consisting of argon, helium and hydrogen through the gap and into the arc chamber to blow the electric arc from the gap and into the interior of the elongated arc chamber to form an elongated arc jet stream comprising the gas and projecting from the arc chamber into a reaction chamber; (c) feeding into the arc jet stream a quantity of one element selected from the group consisting of an alkaline metal and an alkaline earth metal; (d) feeding into the arc jet stream a quantity of a chloride of a metal; (e) maintaining a temperature of the reaction chamber walls higher than the vapor point of the alkali metal chloride or alkaline earth metal chloride and lower than the melting point of the elemental metal; (f) projecting the reaction products into a collection chamber to cause the elemental metal to separate from the gaseous salt and deposit on the interior wall of the collection chamber as a solid; and (g) feeding the arc jet stream past the elemental metal deposited on the interior wall of the collection chamber thereby permitting the deposited elemental metal to become molten and subsequent to being blown by the arc jet stream, rapidly cooled in lower parts of the collection chamber, which are cooler than the uppermost parts thereby permitting the metal to be blown or fall gravitationally into an associated receptacle in the form of solidified globules, crystals, granules and large diameter powders.