William Gregor, a Cornish clergyman was the first to discover titanium while studying sand deposits in the Manaccan valley in 1791. In his sample, he identified an oxide of iron and an unknown metal, which he called ‘menachanite’. This being said, Gregor’s contribution to titanium’s discovery was forgotten, although the oxide he identified is titanium’s most important commercial ore. The ore is now known as ilmenite.
Later, the element was rediscovered by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, a renowned German scientist, in 1795. When he discovered titanium, he named the unidentified metal after the Titans of Greek mythology. But Klaproth could not isolate titanium. It was in 1887 that metallic titanium was isolated by Lars Nilson and Otto Pettersson. They achieved a purity of 95 percentage.
Titanium was isolated with 99 percentage purity by Henry Moissan using an electric furnace in 1896. Later, in 1910, Matthew A. Hunter, an American metallurgist, isolated pure titanium.
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