Federal funding will support expanded domestic production of titanium plate and large-format titanium components for defense applications, helping strengthen U.S. manufacturing capacity for mission-critical materials. The initiative supports efforts to scale advanced titanium processing technologies that reduce reliance on conventional production routes while increasing supply chain resilience for aerospace, defense, and other strategic industries.
IperionX, an American titanium metal and critical materials company, has been awarded up to $6.8 million through the U.S. Department of War’s Office of the Secretary of War-Submarine Workforce and Industrial Base (OSW-SWIB) program to expand manufacturing capabilities at its Titanium Manufacturing Campus in Virginia. The award is part of a broader, multi-organization effort to increase domestic production of high-performance titanium alloy products, including ballistic-grade titanium plate for land and maritime defense platforms.
The project will be completed in two phases. An initial $200,000 will fund project scoping and testing. Pending successful completion of Phase 1, IperionX expects to receive an additional $6.4 million to expand the manufacturing capacity and purchase capital equipment for its Virginia facility.
Conventional titanium plate production involves multiple thermal and metallurgical processing steps, including sponge production, vacuum melting and remelting, ingot or slab casting, breakdown forging, hot rolling, repeated annealing, and final surface conditioning. These processes contribute to long production lead times, high capital and energy requirements, and material yield losses.
IperionX’s patented titanium technologies are designed to simplify and shorten this production route. Its proprietary HAMR™ process can produce low-cost titanium powder from titanium materials or recycled titanium while its HSPT™ and THRM™ technologies processes hydrogen-enabled thermodynamics and powder metallurgy processing to deliver high-performance, wrought-like titanium properties without reliance on conventional melt-remelt-forge pathway.
CEO
IperionX
Source: IperionX
Together, these technologies support IperionX’s powder-to-plate titanium manufacturing platform, which aims to reduce process steps, improve material utilization, lower energy consumption, and strengthen domestic supply-chain resilience. “By combining lower-cost titanium feedstocks with our patented HAMR™, HSPT™ and THRM™ technologies, we are developing a more efficient domestic manufacturing platform for high-performance titanium plate and components,” said Taso Arima, CEO of IperionX.
The project is a systematic metallurgical study to demonstrate how THRM/HSPT microstructural engineering can be used to achieve ballistic performance. It complements separately DoW-funded IperionX programs for powder-to-plate production. Together, these DoW-funded activities provide an alternative pathway that has the potential to reduce the U.S. dependency on imported titanium sponge.
Press release is available in its original form here.
