Recovering of Titanium Dioxide from Solvent- Based Paint Sludge(Case Study; Iran Khodro Company)

Solvent- based paint sludge of automotive industry has a major contamination potential due to containing heavy metals and other toxic substances such as toluene. A range of cleaning techniques has been successfully developed to limit the environmental impact caused by wastewater of these industries, but timely and effective remediation is necessary. The present study aims to estimate the pollution quantity in Solvent- based paint sludge and decrease the pollutant up to environmental standards. Also, optimization of recovering processes of elements is other objective of this study. Titanium dioxide is the main pigment of automotive industry also it is an economical element with high cost. So, titanium dioxide was chosen to recovery from paint sludge. Therefore, sludge samples were collected from paint department of Iran Khodro Company. Then, several methods inclusive of flotation and electrolysis were carried out to recover titanium dioxide from samples. The concentrations of titanium dioxide in all samples were determined by XRF method. The results showed, electrolysis was the best method for recovering titanium dioxide from the paint sludge with70% purity.