TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER ANALYSIS OF STRATEGIC
MATERIALS FOR THE PRIVATE SECTOR: THE CASE
TITANIUM/COMPANHIA VALE DO RIO DOCE – CVRD
ANTONIO PASCOAL DEL’ARCO JUNIOR
EDSON APARECIDA DE ARAÚJO QUERIDO OLIVEIRA
FRANCISCO CRISTÓVÃO LOURENÇO DE MELO
PAULO REMI GUIMARÃES SANTOS
Departamento ECASE
Universidade de Taubaté
TETUNORI KAJITA
Divisão de Materiais
Centro Técnico Aeroespacial
ABSTRACT
The technological development achieved by Brazil on electronical, automotive, chemical, petrochemical sectors and, with emphasis
on the aerospace sector, demanded materials with very specific characteristics. Some minerals and metals performed an important role
in this subject and are considered as strategic by the developed countries.Therefore, regarding the economical aspects, some materials
are scarce and this scarceness grows as function of time, becoming a limiting factor on the economical growth. Nowadays this issue is
being considered very important and it will be one of the main concerns of any government during the next decades. During the
Brazilian Aerospace Program implementation, the Centro Técnico Aeroespacial (CTA), which is responsible for the development of
rockets and the satellite launch vehicle, started some development projects, conducting to several cooperation programs, whose
technologies were later transferred to industries. Among these programs, the production of titanium sponge, and an intermediate
product to get the metal, can be cited as an example. This technique was developed at CTA, taking the advantage of the existing of
large anatase (titanium ore) reserves, owned by Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD). After being tested in a pilot plant, the
technological process was transferred to CVRD, under a technological transference contract. To accomplish the process, the sponge
would be sent to another company named Eletrometal Aços Finos (nowadays Villares Metais S.A.) to produce the titanium metal,
whose production is only done by few developed countries. Considering that nowadays the concern in the preservation of natural
resources is increasing and becoming strategic around the world, this case is a good example of a successful cooperation program,
conducted by a research institute, the Brazilian Government and an industry toward a technological development with an economical
and social benefits.
KEY-WORDS: titanium sponge production technology; technological partnerships; special materials; strategic materials
1. INTRODUCTION
The technological developments achieved by
Brazil
on
electronic,
automotive,
chemical,
petrochemical sectors and with emphasis on the
aerospace sector started to demand materials with
specific characteristics. Some minerals, as raw materials,
and some metals, as intermediary or final products, have
been playing important part in this context, and are
considered strategic by the developed countries.
Thus, considering that in economic terms, the
materials are scarce and the shortage increases as the
time passes, becoming a limiting factor on the
economical growth. Nowadays this has been a quite
debated topic and should be one of the concerns of
governments around the world of coming decades, and
also Brazil.
This subject has been exhaustively debated,
involving class organizations, managers, public and
political authorities, having a search of concise
definition of the problem at international level.
Brazil, due to its large territorial extension and
for the nature of its underground resource possesses a
position of world importance. If well administered, the
mineral resources of the country will assure a situation
privileged in terms of supply of the most materials. To
maintain a competitive position the country needs to
maintain a constant effort of R&D. This effort includes
universities, research centers, consulting companies and
engineering, as well as the private initiative.
It is of fundamental importance that there is a
form of evaluating the relative importance of the several
efforts in agreement with the goals that the country
intends to reach in the field of the progresses and
technological independence. Among the approaches, are
the evaluation of the strategic character of the materials
and of the identification of the opportunities of
investments to attract the private initiative for the
section.
2. SPECIAL AND STRATEGIC MATERIALS.
Part of minerals and metals used in industries
has properties and characteristics which fits into a
distinct group from those of ordinary use and therefore
its classification of special materials. In addition, when
these materials acquire specific importance they can be
classified as strategic due to their applications, raw
materials, trading, technology, production or link to
essential activities to national security and economy.
Based on this interpretation linked to the factors
such as security, technology and trading, the concept is
more associated to essential materials to the economic
security of a country of which the substitution is a
problem because it depends mainly on the external
sources. With the evolution of technology and economy
of the industrialized countries, all the necessary
materials to the development of a country ‘s economy is
also being considered as strategic, supplied total or
partially done by the external sources.
Therefore, the strategic materials are those
which, when transformed in metal, are used in important
industrial sectors which accomplish functions that other
metals do not accomplish. These metals are special
alloys that in most cases exist in small quantities on
Earth.
The degree of strategic importance of a certain
material has, therefore, dynamic evolution because it is
function of assumed options by a country in its priority
of economic development, involving several industrial
sections, together with other factors such as prices,
sources of technology supply among others.
Focusing the subject at national level, Brazil
intends to keep the studies of the strategic materials with
following purpose :
• warranty of enough raw materials for the internal
provisioning, allowing safe economic growth.
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industry provisioning, aiming de national security
preservation.
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countries, increasing the international monetary
reserve and joining importance in the international
scenario; and possibility of exchanging what is leftover
for the things we need to supply our deficiencies in an
intelligent way.
Brazil has world prominence for its reserves of
tantalum, zirconium, titanium, rare earths, beryllium,
nickel and gallium. The prominence of this work will be
to study of titanium.
2.1 Metallic Titanium
Due to its properties of low specific weight and
corrosion resistance, titanium is an excellent substitute
of steel for structural applications. The most common Ti
alloys show higher mechanical strength than aluminium
alloys and quite close to those of stainless steels.
Besides, as they possess high strength/weight
ratio, that is, they possess high strength with low weight,
and maintain their mechanical properties practically
unaffected up to 400oC, they are ideal for use in the
aerospace industry. The superior corrosion resistance
characteristics of Ti than those of stainless steel, they
assure its use in the chemical industry, mainly in the
processing and transport of chlorinated solutions in
(galvanoplastic) and petrochemical industry. Another
important application of metallic Ti at the present days
is in nuclear area, being used in nuclear plants and in
nuclear waste confinement for waste storage.
Besides those applications, Ti is also used in
naval and automotive industries, in medicine, in high
precision equipment among many other applications.
The most important commercial product of Ti is
the titanium dioxide (TiO2) which is a white pigment
used in several industrial applications such as paints,
plastics, rubber, paper, enamels, ceramics and cosmetics.
The main Ti ores are ilmenite, rutile, anatase,
brookite e perovskite. Among this rutile, anatase and
ilmenite are the most important due to their abundance.
All others are limited commercial importance due the
fact that they do not occur in significant deposits.
Anatase is the only reserve found in economical
amount in Brazil, being found in Araxá (Minas Gerais)
and Catalan (Goiás). Those reservations only are enough
to supply the planet Earth for a period of 500 years.
Besides this, the country possesses abundant
reservations of ilmenite. Nowadays, the market for this
product is warmed up due to the high demand and little
offer due to the unstable supply of the product by
Russia.
Brazil, through Centro Técnico Aeroespacial –
CTA (Aerospace Technical Center) a public institution
of Research and Development (R&D), developed and
patented an equipment for the production of titanium
sponge, aiming mainly its use in the Brazilian
Aeroespace Program, where CTA became responsible
for the development of survey rockets and of satellite
launcher vehicles, space artifacts users of this type
metal.
2.2 Process of Production of Titanium Sponge.
The titanium sponge is a commercial and
intermediary product in obtaining of titanium metal.
Taking the advantage of the competitiveness of the
existence of great and only world reservation of the
anatase ore, belonging to Companhia Vale do Rio Doce
(CVRD), a new equipment for the production of this
sponge was developed at CTA, that presented some
advantages in relation to the existing equipments of the
metallic titanium main producer countries (Russia,
Japan, USA, United Kingdom and China). The process
of production can be summarized in the following
phases:
• The process of reduction: the model adopted by
CTA was developed by “United Bureau of Mines”, that
used the “Kroll Process” to obtain the sponge, which
consists of reduction of titanium tetrachloride (obtained
by the chlorination of titanium ores), for metallic
magnesium, at about 850oC, under argon or helium
environment, giving rise to titanium sponge.During
the evolution of this work done in a Pilot Plant
established for this purpose, the equipment was
modified and stages were suppressed until the complete
development of the process and the equipment in
the country. In this process titanium tetrachloride
(TiCl4) was reduced by the molten magnesium,
according to the following reaction:
TiCl4 + 2 Mg → Ti + 2 MgCl2
The magnesium chloride (MgCl2) was drained
during this reduction process, leaving titanium sponge
inside the reactor, impregnated by the magnesium
chloride and magnesium, about 10 to 20%.
• The retrieve of sponge from the reactor: after
cooling the furnace, the reactors were taken to a lathe
and under protection of argon atmosphere to avoid
humidity absorption by the magnesium chloride and
contamination by the sponge, chips were cut from the
sponge still impure.
• The vacuum distillation: the sponge chips, were
taken to a retort, installed in an electric furnace, which
was in the heating process to 900oC under vacuum of
103 mmHg. Thus, the sponge was “purified”; that is,
it is separated from the magnesium chloride and from
the excess of magnesium by vacuum distillation. Under
these conditions, MgCl2 and Mg vaporized being
collected in appropriate deflectors, leaving the sponge
completely purified. The MgCl2, recycled
by
electrolysis, returned to the production line as chlorine
and magnesium. After the distillation process was
done under vacuum and after equipment cooling, the
sponge is removed, in block from the interior of the
reactor, being broken, compacted in brickets and weld in
“consumable electrode” which was them melted in
vacuum arc remelting (VAR) furnace producing
“metallic titanium ingot”, ready to be processed by
mechanical ways, creating several products such as
plates, tubes, bars, profiles among others.
This technological process, although used by
three world-wide producers (one in the United States
and two in Japan) presented several inconveniences,
such as:
• cooling of the reduction furnace
• the titanium chips retrieval contaminated by MgCl2
which besides demanding great consumption of argon,
was under the risk of air leak and consequence
contamination.
• the heating of the distillation furnace.
It can be easily understood that the process of
cooling of reduction furnace and the heating of
distillation furnace, besides the waste of time (a total of
16 hours), it caused also a large waste of energy.
Seeking to eliminate those negative points, the
researchers at CTA developed a technology in pilot
scale, in which the reduction and distillation processes in
vacuum were accomplished in only one recipient
installed in one furnace, producing 300 kg of sponge per
run.
In this technology the process begun with the
reduction of titanium tetrachloride by magnesium,
accompanied by the successive leaks of MgCl2. With
reduction done, the MgCl2 distillation process began
immediately under vacuum to purify the titanium
sponge. This technology eliminated the inconveniences
mentioned in the previous item, besides assuring a better
quality of the obtained sponge because there was not the
danger of contamination by the humidity of air.
Summarizing, the technology developed in Brazil, made
possible:
• time saving between the cooling of the reduction
furnace and the heating of distillation vacuum furnace
(16 hours).
• energy saving for the treating of distillation furnace.
• equipment saving because only one furnace is used
for both operations and so only one recipient for the
reduction and distillation;
• time saving in machining titanium sponge chips
from inside of reactor (12 hours); and better quality of
the obtained titanium sponge.
The big merit of the equipment developed by
CTA was to make possible to accomplish the two
operations, the reduction and the vacuum distillation in
only one reactor and in only one furnace, with
reasonable energy, labor, time and investment savings.
3 TRANSFERENCE
CVRD
OF TECHNOLOGY TO
After having obtained the patent of the
equipment, CTA started the prospection work for the
clients for its industrial use. In 1981, METAMIG, a
Minas Gerais state’s company made agreement with
CTA, seeking to leave the Pilot Plant and produce in
industrial scale. This enlargement finished in 1982, but
due to financial difficulties of the company, the program
was interrupted and the plant did not go into operation.
In 1986, CVRD took over the responsibilities of
METAMIG and the program was resumed. The
technological process, after being tested in pilot scale,
was transferred, through a contract of technology
transfer, for CVRD, that started producing the titanium
in industrial scale.
The process of technology transfer lasted more
than a year of joint operation of Pilot Plant with the
purpose:
• to verify the behavior of the equipment by CTA;
• to train an operation team belonging to CVRD;
• to test the quality of the obtained titanium sponge.
• to find the necessary parameters to the project of an
industrial modulus of production of titanium sponge, to
be established by CVRD.
The agreement celebrated with CVRD foresaw
the training of company’s technician in the Pilot Plant
itself, through the conduction of operation of titanium
sponge. The adopted model was a typical example of
technology transfer, where the customer receives, “in
loco”, all the informations about the Project for the
direct performance of the team. In addition, it was
foreseen in the agreement the payment of royalties to
CTA in case CVRD use the process in commercial scale.
Besides the operation crew, to follow the work
done at Pilot Plant, a representative was indicated to
whom competed the following:
• to participate in regular “follow up meetings” with
the manager of the project, being able to have access to
facilities and documents of CTA related to the
mentioned works.
• to serve as the link between CTA and CVRD.
• to make sure that in appropriate time, the financial
resources foreseen in the agreement are liberated.
• to analyze and to give verdict regarding the
documents of works foreseen in the agreement, being
able to request more information about the approached
technical aspects whenever necessary, so that the
technology transfer be executed in a complete way
and within the established time period.
The
pronouncement
of
the
CRVD
representatives should be made together with the
manager of the team members of the project and in no
more than seven days after presenting the document, in
order to avoid loss in the established time schedule for
the execution of the technical tasks and for the payment
of the financial parts foreseen in the agreement. It was
also settled that Bimonthly Reports and a Final Report at
the end of the process of technology transfer of
production of metallic titanium, should be presented.
To close the technological cycle, the sponge
would be sent to the company, named Eletrometal Aços
Finos (today it belongs to a group called Vilares Metais
S.A.), for the final production of metal, which was
produced only in a closed circuit by the development
countries:
The Titanium Project was important for the
following reasons:
• it propitiated the acquisition of wide experience in
obtaining the metal, that culminated with the
concession of a patent at Instituto Nacional de
Patentes Industriais (INPI) and it made possible to
get the prize “Governador do Estado de São Paulo”
due to the success of the project;
• it made Brazil a self-sufficient country in the
technology of production of titanium sponge, a
process only available to some very closed group of
industrialized countries;
• it placed a reasonable amount of sponge in the
Brazilian market (availability of the product with
CVRD program: 14 metric ton); and
• it propitiated the knowledge of the technology of
reduction of another metallic chlorides, of
reactive metals such as zirconium, niobium and
tantalum.
3.1 Results of CTA/CRVD Agreement
The agreement reached the objectives of
developing a technology of production of the metallic
titanium. All the proposed goals such as verification of
the behavior of the equipment; training of the operation
team and technology transfer, test of product quality and
collection of the parameters for the industrial phase,
were reached.
The original reactor of the patent of CTA was
modified obtaining a simpler and more efficient version.
The capability of the reactor production increased from
450 to 750 kg of sponge per run, in the same foreseen
time (72 hours).
The CVRD belonging team, composed of an
engineer, three technicians, three operators and three
helpers, was qualified to operate the Pilot Plant as
foreseen in the agreement and it was capable of
transferring to the company the whole technology of
production of titanium sponge.
The quality of the sponge produced in the pilot
plant is within the international requirements and it was
similar to those produced in the developed countries, yet
with less energy consumption in the production process
that is, a factor of competitiveness of the national
product.
The magnesium chloride, result of by product of
the process, was commercialized by CVRD having sold
about 49 metric ton of this product to companies such as
QUIMIBRAS and BRASMAQ.
The
CTA/CVRD
agreement
allowed
technological training of both parts in many aspects of
the project which were less known and yet not
dominated. In a moment in which the natural resources
get a worldwide dimension and are being considered as
strategic, this agreement is an example of good
partnership among a research institute, government and
private initiative for the technological development of
economocal and social interest.
4. CONCLUSION
At present time, a lot of discussions have been
set about the use of raw materials that should be
rationally explored and the optimization of its use should
be part of a strategic planning of a country, in order to
guide its internal action and its relationship with other
nations.
It is necessary that each country be conscious of
the role to play as owner of part of earth crust, using it in
the best possible way those goods for the economic
growth of its people and the welfare of the humanity.
With respect to the mineral resources the
Brazilian position is quite peculiar since although its
land occupies one of the largest areas of the planet, it
does not occupy a prominence place as it should in the
mineral production.
The subject of use of mineral resources and of
alternative metals has been in the list of discursions of
the development countries and Brazil must be aware of
this fact. Thus, projects of production of special and
strategic materials that expended public resources and
ended up in the ostracism due to the lads of government
politics and even of concern by the political authorities,
coming back to the surface and they should resuscitated
at the beginning of the new millenium.
One of those projects refers to the production of
metallic titanium with technology development at the
Centro Técnico Aeroespacial (CTA) and transferred to
Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD) for its
exploration in industrial and commercial scale.
After more than two decades of research and
development the Titanium Project reached the end at the
beginning of the nineties. After complete control of
technology of the production of titanium sponge, CTA
started to look for a partner for the technology transfer.
The best candidate was CVRD since it possesses
huge resource of anatase ore. This ore was constituted of
about 20% of titanium oxide, but after treatment of
physical and chemical processes the concentration went
up to 90%.
The other partner was Eletrometal Metais
Especiais, which dominated the melting process of
sponge to get the titanium ingot.
Then a three-partnership agreement was signed,
where CTA would give the technology to obtain the
sponge to CVRD, which by its turn would send the
obtained sponge to Eletrometal in order to melt into
ingots.
With the transfer of every technology to the
private initiative, it was expected that the patented
process was industrialized and made some profits
generating dividends to be used in new research and
accomplished a social role generating new jobs and it
contributed to the economic and social growth of the
country.
For one decade, the project did not proceed due
to many reasons and among them, the Brazilian
economic crisis at the nineties, the slow down of the
industrial activity and the use of composite materials.
Again, with many mineral resources giving signs of
exhaustion, the titanium is one of the metals with
perspectives of use in industrial activities. In addition, in
a sense Brazil can still get profit from its huge reserves
still not well explored.
As suggestion of this work, it is necessary to
emphasize the need of a politic for strategic materials.
The concern in speaking in politics was sustained by the
certainty that the projects established in the section,
public or private, did not reach its economic objectives
and without being based in better orientation of a longterm politics.
All these processes of technology transfer take
the risk of a long period of interruptions in the activities
of R&D and production in economic scale; metallic
titanium is an example. Therefore, these delays do not
contribute for the national objective of pushing up Brazil
to the position of industrialized country and so becoming
a member of the “developed countries” group.
RESUMO
O desenvolvimento tecnológico conseguido pelo Brasil
nos setores petroquímicos, químicos, automotivo,
eletrônico e especialmente no setor aeroespacial, exigiu
materiais com características muito específicas. Alguns
minerais e metais desempenharam um importante papel
nesse assunto e são considerados estratégicos pelos
países desenvolvidos. Por essa razão, olhando-se os
aspectos econômicos, alguns materiais são considerados
escassos e essa escassez cresce em função do tempo,
tornando-se um fator limitante no crescimento
econômico. Atualmente essa questão está sendo
considerada muito importante e deverá ser uma das
principais preocupações de qualquer governo durante as
próximas décadas. Durante a implementação do
Programa Aeroespacial Brasileiro, o Centro Técnico
Aeroespacial (CTA), que é o responsável pelo
desenvolvimento dos foguetes e do veículo lançador de
satélites, iniciou alguns projetos de desenvolvimento que
conduziram a vários programas de cooperação, cujas
tecnologias foram posteriormente transferidas para as
empresas. Entre esses programas, a produção da esponja
de titânio, um produto intermediário para se obter o
metal, pode ser citada como exemplo. Essa técnica foi
desenvolvida no CTA, para aproveitar a vantagem da
existência de grandes reservas de anatásio (minério de
titânio), que são de propriedade da Companhia Vale do
Rio Doce (CVRD). Após ter sido testada em escala
piloto, o processo tecnológico foi transferido para a
CVRD, por um contrato de transferência de tecnologia.
Para completar o processo, a esponja seria enviada para
uma outra empresa chamada Eletrometal Aços Finos
(atualmente Villares Metais S.A.) para a produção do
titânio metálico, cujo produção é realizada somente por
poucos países desenvolvidos.Considerando que hoje em
dia a preocupação na preservação dos recursos naturais
está crescendo e tornando-se estratégica em todo o
mundo, esse caso é um bom exemplo de um programa
de cooperação bem sucedido, conduzido por um instituto
de pesquisa, o Governo Brasileiro e uma empresa em
direção a um desenvolvimento tecnológico com
benefícios econômicos e sociais.
SANTOS Paulo R. G. Projeto Metais Estratégicos. São
José dos Campos: Centro Técnico Aeroespacial, 1983.
PALAVRAS-CHAVE: tecnologia de produção de
esponja de titânio; parcerias tecnológicas; materiais
especiais; materiais estratégicos.
Edson Aparecida de Araújo Querido Oliveira é
Professor Colaborador Adjunto no Departamento de
Economia, Contábeis e Administração da Universidade
de Taubaté.
TERMO ADITIVO Nº 06-IPD/81, de 18 de Agosto de
1986.
Antonio Pascoal Del’ Arco Junior é Professor
Colaborador Titular no Departamento de Economia,
Contábeis e Administração da Universidade de Taubaté.
5. References
CAMARA, Eduardo G; LAKECHVIST JUNIOR,
Arthur; CUNHA,Osvaldo C. Minerais e Metais
Estratégicos no Brasil. Rio de janeiro: I Simpósio
Internacional de Minérios e Metais Estratégicos, Março
1978.
CONVÊNIO Nº 02-IPD/81, de 29 de Outubro de 1981.
Rover; Carlos F. S. Projeto Titânio. São José dos
Campos: Centro Técnico Aeroespacial, 1987.
Francisco Cristóvão Lourenço de Melo é Professor
Colaborador Titular no Departamento de Economia,
Contábeis e Administração da Universidade de Taubaté.
Paulo Remi Guimarães Santos é Professor
Colaborador Assistente no Departamento de Economia,
Contábeis e Administração da Universidade de Taubaté.
Tetunori Kajita é Pesquisador de Divisão do Matérias
do Centro Técnico Aeroespacial.