William J. Kroll
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- See also German classic philologist, Wilhelm Kroll (philologist) (1869-1939), Kroll:
William Justin Kroll (born Guillaume Justin Kroll; November 24, 1889 - March 30, 1973) was a metallurgist from Luxembourg. He is best known for inventing the Kroll process in 1940, which is used commercially to extract metallic titanium from ore.
Kroll was born in the commune of Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxembourg. With World War II brewing, he immigrated to the United States where titanium was needed for the war effort. While working for the U.S. Bureau of Mines he worked with the chemically similar zirconium. He died in Brussels in 1973. Kroll was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2000.