When smelting titanium, it goes through complex steps. Titanium sponge is obtained by turning ilmenite into titanium tetrachloride, then putting it in a sealed stainless steel tank, filling it with argon gas, and reacting it with magnesium metal. Titanium sponge cannot be used directly, and titanium sponge must be melted into a liquid in an electric furnace before it can be cast into titanium ingots. But this kind of electric furnace requires a very high technology, in addition to the air of the electric furnace must be pumped clean, what is more nerve-wracking is that it is impossible to find a crucible containing liquid titanium, because the general refractory material contains oxides, and the oxygen in it will be taken away by liquid titanium. Later, people finally invented an electric furnace with a "water-cooled copper crucible". Only the central part of the furnace is hot, the rest is cold, and the titanium melts in the furnace and flows to the wall of the copper crucible cooled with water, where it immediately condenses into titanium ingots.
The method of mass production of titanium in industry is the Klorr method: titanium metal is first produced by the action of chlorine and carbon on ilmenite (TiFeO₃) or rutile (TiO₂). The resulting titanium tetrachloride (TiCl₄) is then separated from ferric chloride (FeCl₃) by distillation. Finally, titanium tetrachloride is reduced with magnesium metal (Mg) to obtain titanium metal. Air should be removed from the production process to avoid titanium reacting with oxygen or nitrogen to form impurities.