Titanium resources, with many outstanding properties, is abundant in the earth's crust, while large-scale application of titanium has been substantially restricted by two key challenges, i.e. high production cost and low utilization. Currently, metallurgists have paid great attention to develop a new extraction process for achieving the goal. However, the sustainable recycling of titanium currently receives far less attention. Here, we develop a molten salt electrolysis for the high-quality recycling of titanium scarps. TC4 (Ti6Al4V) scrap, as a representative titanium alloy, is selected to investigate the separation effect in the molten salt electrolysis. Remarkably, anodic dissolution of the vanadium element in the TC4 alloy could be inhibited by decreasing anodic current density. Therefore, high priced vanadium metal powder could be collected from the anodic mud. Aluminum element in the TC4 alloy anode can dissolve into electrolyte in the form of Al ions, and then remains in the electrolyte via optimizing the electrolyte contents and electrolysis parameters. Finally, high purity titanium could be collected from the cathode. Consequently, this work is significant for the titanium sustainable recirculation or even the entire titanium industry because the titanium scraps will be converted into the high-grade titanium metal and other high priced metals.

地壳中钛资源丰富，具有许多突出的特性，而钛的大规模应用受到两个关键挑战的严格限制，即生产成本高和利用率低。当前，冶金学家已经非常注意开发一种新的提取工艺以实现该目的。但是，钛的可持续回收目前很少受到关注。在这里，我们开发了一种熔融盐电解技术，用于高质量回收钛皮屑。选择TC4（Ti6Al4V）废料作为代表性的钛合金，以研究熔融盐电解中的分离效果。值得注意的是，钒元素在TC4合金中的阳极溶解可通过降低阳极电流密度来抑制。因此，可以从阳极泥中收集高价的钒金属粉末。TC4合金阳极中的铝元素可以以Al离子的形式溶解到电解质中，然后通过优化电解质含量和电解参数保留在电解质中。最后，可以从阴极收集高纯度钛。因此，这项工作对于钛的可持续循环利用乃至整个钛工业都具有重要意义，因为钛废料将被转化为高级钛金属和其他高价金属。