McTaggarts plasma research led to patents as assignor to the CSIRO, including US 3,533,777 Production of metals from their halides' filed 2 Nov. 1966 for an apparatus and process for producing metals from the halides of metals of Groups I, II, III of the Periodic table and rare earth metals. It consisted of means to generate a plasma through high frequency electromagnetic energy within a gas or a vapor of that halide to cause the halide to dissociate, and then separating the metal thus produced from the other dissociation products, a process in which an auxiliary gas, hydrogen, helium or nitrogen, may also be used in conjunction with the halide.
He filed another patent on 5 Sept. 1967 for Plasma sintering with Neil Mckinnon, C.E.G. Bennet and Lloyd S. Williams, which was issued 11 March 1969.