Titanium Dioxide By Electro-mech Engineers

Titanium Dioxide

Titania TiO2 Titanium dioxide pigment is a fine white powder. When used in paints, plastics or paper, it provides for maximum whiteness and opacity. It gives paint high hiding power, meaning the ability to mask or hide a substrate. It does this more effectively than any other white pigment. Today, titanium dioxide pigment is by far the most important material used by the paints and plastics industry for whiteness and opacity. These unique properties are derived from the refractive index of titanium dioxide. The refractive index expresses the ability to bend and scatter light. Titanium dioxide has the highest refractive index of any material known to man, greater even than diamond. To take advantage of this property, titanium dioxide must be mined, refined and ground to a fine, uniform particle size.

Nature does not yield titanium dioxide in a form that is usable by our customers. Titanium dioxide is usually associated with iron, mostly as ilmenite. It is also mined in one of the pure forms, rutile beach sand.


Applications

Titanium dioxide is the most widely used as white pigment because of its brightness and very high refractive index (n = 2.7), in which it is surpassed only by a few other materials.

Approximately 4 million tons of pigmentary TiO2 are consumed annually worldwide. When deposited as a thin film, its refractive index and colour make it an excellent reflective optical coating for dielectric mirrors and some gemstones like "mystic fire topaz". TiO2 is also an effective opacifier in powder form, where it is employed as a pigment to provide whiteness and opacity to products such as paints, coatings, plastics, papers, inks, foods, medicines (i.e. pills and tablets) as well as most toothpastes. In paint, it is often referred to offhandedly as "the perfect white", "the whitest white", or other similar terms. Opacity is improved by optimal sizing of the titanium dioxide particles.

In ceramic glazes titanium dioxide acts as an opacifier and seeds crystal formation. Titanium dioxide is often used to whiten skimmed milk; this has been shown statistically to increase skimmed milk's palatability.