American titanium manufacturer IperionX has released the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) for its Titan Critical Minerals Project (Titan) in west Tennessee, confirming a mine plan designed to anchor a fully domestic U.S. titanium supply chain — one the company intends to route through its proprietary powder production technologies and into additive manufacturing (AM) markets. The study, completed with U.S. government support under the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) program, models a post-tax net present value of US$813 million, an internal rate of return of 39.4%, and a payback period of 3.63 years based on a 14-year mine plan backed entirely by Proved and Probable Ore Reserves.
From mineral sands to metal powder
The project is structured around four saleable mineral concentrate streams — ilmenite, rutile, zircon, and a Heavy Rare Earth Concentrate (HREC) — produced from a near-surface, free-dig mineral sands deposit requiring no blasting or hard-rock crushing. At full Phase 2 capacity, Titan would produce 118,658 tonnes per year of ilmenite and 24,656 tonnes per year of rutile, the two titanium-bearing minerals IperionX intends to feed into its downstream Hydrogen-Assisted Metallothermic Reduction (HAMR) process.
That process, the company says, converts raw titanium minerals directly into metal powder at a cost 40% to 70% lower than the conventional Kroll process, by bypassing the energy-intensive sponge and melt stages that characterise traditional titanium production.
Closing the feedstock loop
The significance of that claim, for an AM audience, is what it implies for feedstock economics. Spherical titanium powder — the grade required for laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) and related processes — currently depends heavily on imported sponge or recycled scrap, much of it traceable to Chinese or Russian origin. IperionX’s proposed pipeline would replace that with a domestic loop: mineral sands mined in Tennessee, upgraded and reduced at its Virginia Titanium Manufacturing Campus, and delivered as powder into U.S. aerospace, defense, and robotics supply chains.
The company’s Hydrogen Sintering and Phase Transformation (HSPT) process would then produce near-net-shape components from that powder, with IperionX claiming wrought-equivalent mechanical properties. As of 2026, the Virginia campus operates at 200 tonnes per year; IperionX is targeting 1,400 tonnes per year by 2027 under government contract, and over 10,000 tonnes per year by 2030.
The numbers behind the project
The DFS financials are built on four product revenue streams, but the economics pivot heavily on HREC. At a forecast price of US$41,759 per tonne — compared with US$353/tonne for ilmenite — the rare earth concentrate is the project’s margin engine despite representing a small fraction of total volume. Phase 2 annual EBITDA is modelled at US$226 million. Total development capital is US$381.3 million, split across two phases: US$228.1 million for Phase 1 and an incremental US$153.2 million for Phase 2 expansion from 3.5 million to 10 million tonnes per year of ore feed. The ore reserve stands at 117 million tonnes at 3.17% Total Heavy Minerals, with 80% classified as Proved — the highest confidence category in reserve reporting.
Phase 1 construction is targeted to begin in January 2027, with first production ramp-up scheduled for September 2028. Phase 2 is not expected to reach full output until late 2032.
A broader race for domestic titanium powder
IperionX’s strategy sits within a wider U.S. effort to sever the AM industry’s dependence on foreign titanium feedstock. The gap the Titan is designed to fill is that domestic powder producers currently convert imported sponge or recycled scrap into AM-grade material, meaning the supply chain is domesticated at the processing stage but not at the source. By owning the mineral deposit, IperionX is attempting to move that boundary upstream — from powder plant to mine — and give its HAMR process a feedstock base that requires no foreign input at any point. That ambition is being built on an already-active powder operation: IperionX’s Virginia campus has been expanding under successive IBAS contract disbursements, receiving phased government funding toward a 1,400 tpa capacity target — all before Titan produces a single tonne of ore.
The government’s willingness to fund multiple producers simultaneously underlines how seriously the feedstock problem is being treated. 6K Additive is scaling its Burgettstown, Pennsylvania campus toward 1,000 tonnes per year of domestic metal powder using its UniMelt plasma atomization platform, backed by a US$23.4 million Defence Production Act Title III grant and a US$27.4 million EXIM loan. The US Department of Defense’s (DoD) decision to fund half that expansion through a DPA mechanism — a tool historically reserved for strategic industrial mobilisation — signals that titanium powder supply is being treated as an industrial security problem, not simply a commercial gap for the private sector to close.
What distinguishes IperionX’s position from these parallel efforts is the vertical ambition. Where 6K Additive is competing on powder processing technology and qualification, IperionX is betting that controlling the mineral source changes the long-term economics of the entire chain. Whether that bet pays off depends on a technology scale-up — HAMR from 200 to over 10,000 tpa — that the DFS does not yet detail.
3D Printing Industry is inviting speakers for its 2026 Additive Manufacturing Applications (AMA) series, covering Energy, Healthcare, Automotive and Mobility, Aerospace, Space and Defense, and Software. Each online event focuses on real production deployments, qualification, and supply chain integration. Practitioners interested in contributing can complete the call for speakers form here.
To stay up to date with the latest 3D printing news, don’t forget to subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry newsletter or follow us on LinkedIn.
Explore the full Future of 3D Printing and Executive Survey series from 3D Printing Industry, featuring perspectives from CEOs, engineers, and industry leaders on the industrialization of additive manufacturing, 3D printing industry trends 2026, qualification, supply chains, and additive manufacturing industry analysis.
Featured image shows IperionX Titan Project models $813M NPV for titanium supply. Photo via IperionX.
