There are provided processes for preparing various products from various materials. For example, such processes are effective for extracting various metals from various materials, thereby allowing for preparing products such as aluminum chloride, alumina, titanium chloride and titanium oxide. These processes can comprise leaching the starting material with HCl so as to obtain a leachate and a solid. The solid can be treated so as to substantially selectively extract titanium therefrom while the leachate can be treated so as to substantially selectively recover a first metal chloride therefrom.