Aluminum Vs Titatanium pots-why does Ti cost so much more??

Ti is far more durable per weight than aluminum. It's also far more rare of a metal compared to aluminum. Health-wise, it's a far safer material to be cooking with/eating out of. There are concerns with aluminum increasing your chances of Alzheimer's. I think the most obvious example regarding health is that you can have a piece of Ti implanted in your body without issue. If you did the same with Alu, your body would reject it.

HTH

KJ

I love ti, I can cook a fish with no oil eat it then clean it out with rocks and have it look good as new.

Titanium is heavier than aluminium but because it is much stronger and has a much higher melting point (a660c vs 660) the walls can be much thinner.
As pointed out it is also biocompatible , highly corrosion resistant and does not react with acidic foods as aluminium does.
The downside is that it cools off very quickly but scorches easily so not ideal for folk that cook but great for boiling.

As for the cost some like to believe that it has to do with marketing and ripping people off but in reality it is expensive to extract and process , however it is a very common (abundant) element.
Took over 100 years of experimentation to figure out how to process it it to get a 99% or thereabout purity.

I think the weight difference is generally more than your comparison suggests. It will vary with specific models because some are built more sturdily than others and include other items.

I think the Ti pot you linked includes a plastic lid and a mesh bag in the weight that is listed. Also I suspect it is probably a sturdier more durable pot. Otherwise the weight difference would be greater.

Is it worth the difference in price? It is to me, but might not be for everyone.

Franco

Thanks for the info on the cost. I thought Ti was not very abundant. I assumed it was harder to process, but was uncertain. Good info.

KJ

Supply and demand. The US Government helps drive the price up with things like this beauty — I do like it BTW, but it is now retired. 85% of the structure is titanium.

Same thing with full Dyneema material.

> Health-wise, it's a far safer material to be cooking with/eating out of. There are
> concerns with aluminum increasing your chances of Alzheimer's.
Another totally debunked urban myth. Read all about it in Snopes.

Summary:
A single unrefereed undergrad report that aluminium was found on Alzeimer plaques. Subsequent careful research found that ALL the aluminium found had been put there by incompetent sample preparation techniques.
All the rest was typical hysteria.

Cheers

Ti is a lot cheaper than it used to be.

While Ti is one of the most abundant elements on earth, processing to make pure Ti is not easy.

Ti also is not as easily formed. Thin Ti wont take a set, it springy. Even though thicker materials may take a set, they can also spring back over time.

Supply and demand

Ti is perceived to be more valuable than aluminum so they can charge more

There's an issue of volume and mass production. We've been making hundreds of millions of aluminum pots and pans since WWII. If Ti pots were sold at Walmart volumes, they'd be 1/2 the cost.

"There's an issue of volume and mass production. We've been making hundreds of millions of aluminum pots and pans since WWII. If Ti pots were sold at Walmart volumes, they'd be 1/2 the cost."

And that would be supply and demand :)

Jerry might want the government to control it so the poor can afford it :)

"Ti is perceived to be more valuable than aluminum so they can charge more"
False and in fact I have already pointed out that some LIKE to believe that however it has nothing to do with reality.
Jeremy , how about you educate yourself before you post comments like that ?

here is a start :

Why is titanium not more widely used than say aluminum
or steel? Is it a rare and precious metal? No, titanium is
the fourth most abundant metal in the earth’s crust (0.86 % by
weight) behind aluminum, iron, and magnesium. The answer
is cost! Titanium is difficult to extract from its ore, difficult
to process, and difficult to fabricate. Just accounting for the
extraction and processing costs to produce ingot, titanium
is ~30 times more expensive per pound than steel and ~6
times that of aluminum. The cost gap for titanium widens
when fabricating components and structures. Table 1 shows
a cost comparison of the various stages of metal production
From :http://ammtiac.alionscience.com/pdf/AMPQ6_2ART01.pdf
http://ammtiac.alionscience.com/about/

BTW, the supply and demand bit is true (as the paper I linked to discusses) in the sense that if there was a higher demand the price would come down not that because there is a demand the price is high.
But of course this does not play well for some.

Snowpeak 900 $50 plus 3.7 oz (ti)
IMUS 10 cm mug (about the same size) 2.5 oz, less than $5 (al)
Why would anyone interested in lightweight backpacking buy the ti pot? To say nothing of the price.

A thin Alu pot like an empty beer pot is far less weight per Liter/fluid ounce than Ti though it is finicky. Some beer pots come with ridges on the side walls like the Suluk46 that increases the rigitity. The only question I have is do soft drink and beer processing companies that use Alu cans have a lining/coating on the inside of the can? If yes could this be a problem when heating the can bottom for boiling water with an flame?

"The only question I have is do soft drink and beer processing companies that use Alu cans have a lining/coating on the inside of the can? If yes could this be a problem when heating the can bottom for boiling water with an flame?"

Yes

Plastic coating

May be BPA, or some other chemical

Use a cooking pot for cooking, beer can for drinking beer

But I may be wrong – my preperations for 12/21/2012 were unwarranted : )

Hmmmm that poses a new challange…

From what I've researched there isn't a cause and effect relationship established between Aluminum and Alzheimer’s. The perception that there is certainly doesn't hurt the titanium market at all. Even if there is, I would have a greater concern about the aluminum content of deodorants and other products than what I'm ingesting from my pot.

I've purchased a couple titanium pots on the premise of "buy quality less often" and with the hope that I can use them over a fire without long-term consequences. If you can buy a sub three ounce pot which can boil two cups of water for less than $5 then that sounds like an outstanding deal.

BLUF my opinion is that there is nothing wrong with aluminum but I found the quality of titanium to be worth paying the premium.

"The only question I have is do soft drink and beer processing companies that use Alu cans have a lining/coating on the inside of the can? If yes could this be a problem when heating the can bottom for boiling water with an flame"

No. Soda cans are not coated with plastic. Just cut one open and take a look. If you still arn't sure use an ohm meter and measure the resistance. If it is coated with plastic it will not conduct. I have used aluminum cans in the past for some electronics projects and I never had to scrap off plastic to get the interior surface to conduct.

Platic coating is mainly used on the Steel cans to prevent reactions with food and to stop corrosion of the steel. Plastic coatings are still used today on steel cans but most manufactures don't use BPA based plastic coatings today.

Okay – I had to measure aluminum can – you're right, it conducts electricity, no obvious coating – though there might be a thin coating that my probe poked through

Poking around the internets, the first link I looked at, mayo clinic which is fairly reputable, says aluminum cans do have coatings with BPA. And other links also.

What's bad, is that the BPA leaches out more when hot, which is what happens when they package food into it. If you used it as a cook pot, it would be contantly heated which would leach out BPA even more

If they replace BPA with some other chemical, how long will it be before they find the new chemical also has problems

"If they replace BPA with some other chemical, how long will it be before they find the new chemical also has problems"

Probably long after you and I die from old age ;)

> Snowpeak 900 $50 plus
You can get a Vargo Ti mug (450 cc) on eBay for ~$25.
Does this suggest that the retailers may be the ones doing the gouging?

I don't know what Kingsound charge for them in bulk. A lot less, I imagine. But most Ti mugs come from them.

Cheers