Titanium Dioxide has been used as a pigment and opacifier in a wide range of industries for many years, due to its bright white color and high refractive index. However, despite such widespread use, processing Titanium Dioxide in its powdered form is often extremely challenging due to the powder’s high cohesivity. Special measures often need to be implemented when managing this material in operations such as dispensing from hoppers, feeding into unit operations, and blending with other powders.
Identifying and quantifying which powder properties are conducive to efficient processing allows new formulations to be optimized without the significant cost of running samples through the process to assess suitability, making considerable savings in terms of time and raw materials, and minimizing wastage due to out of specification products.
Despite meeting the existing specifications, three batches of Titanium Dioxide demonstrated significantly different behavior when used in the same process, resulting in unacceptable variation in final product quality. A range of traditional characterization techniques were employed but failed to differentiate between the three batches, partially due to the high degree of variability in the test results.
Samples of the batches were analyzed using an FT4 Powder Rheometer®, which demonstrated clear and repeatable differences between them that rationalized the variations in process performance, and enabled the user to reliably assess the quality of incoming batches in process-relevant terms.
Titanium Dioxide has been used as a pigment and opacifier in a wide range of industries for many years, due to its bright white color and high refractive index. However, despite such widespread use, processing Titanium Dioxide in its powdered form is often extremely challenging due to the powder’s high cohesivity. Special measures often need to be implemented when managing this material in operations such as dispensing from hoppers, feeding into unit operations, and blending with other powders.
Identifying and quantifying which powder properties are conducive to efficient processing allows new formulations to be optimized without the significant cost of running samples through the process to assess suitability, making considerable savings in terms of time and raw materials, and minimizing wastage due to out of specification products.
Despite meeting the existing specifications, three batches of Titanium Dioxide demonstrated significantly different behavior when used in the same process, resulting in unacceptable variation in final product quality. A range of traditional characterization techniques were employed but failed to differentiate between the three batches, partially due to the high degree of variability in the test results.
Samples of the batches were analyzed using an FT4 Powder Rheometer®, which demonstrated clear and repeatable differences between them that rationalized the variations in process performance, and enabled the user to reliably assess the quality of incoming batches in process-relevant terms.
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