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Titanium scrap price: alloy, form and how clean it is
A titanium scrap price is set by three things you can see before the lot leaves your shop: which alloy it is, what form it is in, and how clean it is. We buy titanium solids, turnings, sheet and parts, quote each lot from its photos and weight, and pay cash where state law allows. Ask for a quote or call (877) 838-9920.
What titanium scrap is
USGS says titanium is as strong as steel but 45 percent lighter, with excellent corrosion resistance, so a titanium bracket feels light in the hand next to a steel one.
In its Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, USGS says the majority of US titanium metal in 2025 went to aerospace, with the rest in armor, chemical processing, marine hardware, medical implants and power generation.
Scrap comes in two families: unalloyed titanium, called commercially pure or CP, and the alloys, such as 6Al-4V (UNS R56400). NIST certifies its reference sample of that alloy, SRM 654b, at 6.34% aluminum and 4.31% vanadium by mass.
Sources: USGS Professional Paper 1802-T, Titanium (2017); USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, Titanium and titanium dioxide (February 2026); NIST, Certificate of Analysis, SRM 654b Titanium Base Alloy 6Al-4V.
What raises or lowers titanium scrap value
We do not post a titanium scrap price; we quote the lot you actually have.
Alloy, known and kept apart. USGS describes how clippings, stampings and turnings are usually segregated by material specification and melted back into a product with the desired chemistry. A bag of one alloy can go back into that alloy; a bag of three cannot.
Form. Solids such as bar ends, plate drops and rejected parts are simple to keep sorted by alloy. Turnings are swarf, and USGS notes swarf may contain a residue of cutting oil, which is generally removed prior to recycling. In the ferrotitanium process it describes, swarf is pulverized, degreased and dewatered before melting.
Cleanliness. USGS says “new scrap is preferred for use and trade because the quality is controllable.” High-quality scrap tends to go to ingot makers; lower-quality scrap tends to go to ferrotitanium for steelmaking. So we ask for lots sorted by alloy, drained of coolant and free of steel.
The market. USGS estimates US imports of titanium scrap at 32,000 metric tons in 2025. Through July 2025 the average duty-paid unit value of those imports was about $7.70 per kilogram, against an annual average of $8.50 per kilogram in 2024 (Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026). That is an import average, not a price for any one lot, and it swings: from 1994 through 2004 scrap prices varied almost five times as much as sponge prices (USGS, 2010).
Sources: USGS Circular 1196-Y, Titanium Recycling in the United States in 2004 (2010); USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, Titanium and titanium dioxide (February 2026).
Where titanium scrap comes from
Aerospace is a big source. An aerospace part takes far more metal to make than it weighs when finished, and the industry calls that relationship the buy-to-fly ratio. USGS estimated it at about 5:1 for aerospace in 2004: useful product was about 20 percent of the 12,000 metric tons of titanium delivered to the sector, and the sector's new scrap held about 10,000 tons.
Medical device work uses it too: USGS notes titanium is increasingly used for hip and knee joints, bone screws and plates, and dental implants.
Old scrap is retired hardware; the 2010 USGS circular names obsolete airframes, engine turbine blades and chemical processing tanks.
Nevada has its own titanium history: the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 lists a sponge plant in Henderson with an estimated 12,600 metric tons a year of capacity, idled in 2020 owing to market conditions.
Sources: USGS Circular 1196-Y, Titanium Recycling in the United States in 2004 (2010); USGS Professional Paper 1802-T, Titanium (2017); USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, Titanium and titanium dioxide (February 2026).
Heat-tinted turnings and titanium fines
Heat-tinted turnings, the straw, blue or purple chips from a hot cut, are part of what we buy. Bag the dark chips apart from the bright ones so a clean lot is not judged by its worst handful.
Fines are a different matter. OSHA warns that even materials that do not burn in larger pieces, such as aluminum or iron, can be explosible in dust form under the right conditions, and its combustible dust page records that “3 workers were killed in a 2010 titanium dust explosion in West Virginia.” Tell us about any titanium fines or grinding dust before you pack, and keep them out of the turnings bags.
Sources: OSHA, Combustible Dust.
Keep it dry, sorted and steel out
- Sort by alloy. Keep CP titanium apart from 6Al-4V and from any other grade, and write the alloy from the job traveler or mill cert on each bag.
- Drain and dry. Let turnings drip out in a screened bin, then bag them in a sealed container and tell us the coolant.
- Pull the steel. Steel chips and broken steel parts do not belong in a titanium bin. After a first sort by shape, color and weight, USGS lists response to a magnet among the tests scrap sorters use.
- Pick out broken inserts. A carbide insert in a titanium chip bin is a contaminant there and a sale of its own. We buy carbide too: carbide inserts.
- Keep other exotics apart. Nickel alloy chips and cobalt alloy chips each go in their own bag; see Inconel and nickel alloys and cobalt and Stellite.
Sources: USGS Circular 1196-A-M, Flow Studies for Recycling Metal Commodities (2004); USGS Circular 1196-Y, Titanium Recycling in the United States in 2004 (2010).
How to sell your titanium scrap
Start with the quote form: the alloy, the form, a rough weight and photos. Email works too, at help@carbidebuyerusa.com, and so does a call to (877) 838-9920.
Anywhere in the United States, you can ship it to us and we pay the shipping (how to pack it). In any city in California, Arizona and Nevada we will also come out to you: see pickup.
We pay cash where state law allows. Arizona bars on-site payment for scrap metal transactions of $300 or more: payment is a check or money order mailed to the address on the seller's ID, with exceptions the statute lists. Nevada requires scrap metal processors to pay only by check or electronic transfer for scrap metal purchases of $150 or more. California's check-or-wait payment rule covers copper, copper alloys, stainless steel and aluminum, and titanium is not on that list. ID and record rules for all three states are in the scrap metal rules guide.
Sources: Arizona Revised Statutes 44-1642; Nevada Revised Statutes, Chapter 647; California AB 1508 (2012), Bus. & Prof. Code 21608.5.
Questions sellers ask
What is the scrap titanium price today?
We do not publish one. The alloy, the form, the oxide and any steel or coolant all change the number, so send photos and a weight through the quote form and we will quote your lot.
Are solids worth more than turnings?
It depends on the lot, so we quote each one. Keep solids and turnings in separate containers, and keep the turnings dry and of one alloy.
Do you buy titanium that is mixed with other metals?
Yes, we buy all exotic metals and alloys. Sorting a mixed bin by alloy first lets us quote each part on its own.
Keep reading
Inconel and nickel alloys
Inconel, Hastelloy, Monel and other nickel alloys
Learn more
Tungsten scrap
Tungsten heavy alloy, rod, wire and pure tungsten
Learn more
Carbide inserts
Used indexable inserts, coated or uncoated, any shape
Learn more
Ship your scrap
Ship from anywhere in the US; we pay the shipping
Learn moreGet a quote for your carbide
Tell us what form it is in, about how much it weighs, and send a few photos. Ship it to us from anywhere in the US and we pay the shipping, or we pick up in California, Arizona and Nevada.