Reducing Paint Manufacturing Costs by Effective Utilisation of Titanium Dioxide Pigment

Titanium dioxide is one of the more expensive components of paints and one that is subject to significant price fluctuations. In addition there is considerable evidence that paint manufacturers do not always achieve efficient titanium dioxide utilisation, ie attain the required opacity for the minimum quantity of pigment. This is especially true for water-based formulations where good pigment dispersion is difficult to attain and the paint industry is keen, for environmental reasons, to replace existing solvent-borne paints by comparable water-borne formulations. The project is designed specifically to provide a high level of support to small and medium size paint manufacturers (SMEs). There are over 1400 paint manufacturing companies in Europe and two thirds of these employ fewer than 50 people with less than 6% of the companies having more than 250 employees.

It was estimated that the hiding power needed to be determined with an accuracy of 0.5 m21-1 or better. While this precision could be achieved within a single laboratory, the variation from laboratory to laboratory was often far greater than this. Considerable time was spent trying to resolve the interlaboratory discrepancies.

It was found that, in all the paints studied, titanium dioxide was being utilised as efficiently as possible. Individual components and additives at the formulation stage can, however, have a significant effect on the hiding power of a paint.

The final stage of the project was spent in measurement of the effects of components and additives at the formulation stage on the hiding power of solvent and water-borne paints.

Further Information

If you are interested in this, or any other project, please contact Richard Holman.