Ultrafine Titanium-dioxide (Rutile) Based Nano-crystalline Dispersions as a Pigment for Waterborne Coatings

The present study involves a novel approach in manufacturing nano-crystalline dispersions of titanium dioxide, a widely used pigment in the paints and coatings market. These dispersions are developed to provide certain benefits over conventional titanium dioxide powder to improve the coating parameters such as adhesion promotion, hiding, tinting strength, dispersion, and reduced dosage. Dispersions are synthesized using bead mill and high-speed disperser in a unique multi-stage process, thereby developing a scalable technology for industrial synthesis. Characterization of these dispersions, namely XRD, particle size analysis, and FE-SEM, confirmed the presence of nano-crystalline titanium dioxide particles. Moreover, analysis of process variables was also conducted by studying the effect of grinding time on particle-size reduction. Rheological analysis was performed for water and styrene-acrylic copolymer emulsion systems. It was developed a dataset of viscosities. Results of this study can be assessed to create scalable technology for the synthesis of nano-crystalline dispersions, which can be used as a pigment in multipurpose waterborne coating systems.