Titanium dioxide is used a food colour (E171) and, as with all food colours, its technological function is to make food more visually appealing, to give colour to food that would otherwise be colourless, or to restore the original appearance of food. Titanium dioxide is also present in cosmetics, paints, and medicines.

Titanium Dioxide is largely produced by the reduction of titanium tetrachloride, obtained in turn from chlorination of natural rutile, synthetic rutile derived from ilmenite or even slags rich in TiO2 produced by metallurgical treatment of ilmenite. TiO2 is also manufactured by treatment of ilmenite with sulfuric acid. Raw materials and the respective production processes employed in the manufacturing of Titanium Dioxide are listed below.

It adds a bright white color to coffee creamers, baked goods, chewing gums, hard-shell candies, puddings, frostings, dressings, and sauces. But the nanoparticles found in “food-grade” titanium dioxide may accumulate in the body and cause DNA damage—which is one way chemicals cause cancer and other health problems. 

④ Ink industry: titanium dioxide is also an indispensable white pigment in advanced ink. The ink containing titanium dioxide is durable and does not change color, has good surface wettability and is easy to disperse. The titanium dioxide used in the ink industry includes rutile and anatase.

A legal additive in the United States, titanium dioxide is used in everything from food to consumer goods and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says regulated use of the product as a color additive in food is safe within certain restrictions.

A dense, white, opaque pigment composed of a mixture of Zinc sulfide (30%) and Barium sulfate (70%) with trace amounts of Zinc oxide. Lithopone, first produced in 1874, was called Orr's white. The mixture of the two components is so intimate that it is hard to distinguish microscopically. Lithopone is an inert, transparent pigment which is often used as a filler or as a base for lake pigments. Lithopone was widely used in house paints in the first half of the 20th century. It was also used for some artist grounds, inks and as a filler in Paper, Leather, and Linoleum. Now lithopone has mostly been replaced by Titanium dioxide.

 (1) Konaka et al. 1999. (2) Serpone et al. 2006. (3) Brezova et al. 2004. (4) Dunford et al. 1997. (5) Warner et al. 1997. (6) Salinaro et al. 1997. (7) Maness et al. 1999.

CSPI’s Chemical Cuisine is the web’s definitive rating of the chemicals used to preserve foods and affect their taste, texture, or appearance. Besides titanium dioxide, the group recommends avoiding artificial sweeteners like aspartame, acesulfame potassium, and sucralose, as well as synthetic food dyes like Yellow 5 and Red 3. CSPI and others have recently asked the Food and Drug Administration to ban the latter dye in foods and ingested drugs because the FDA has already determined that it is a carcinogen unsafe for use in cosmetics.

Sulphate and chloride methods

How pure TiO2 is extracted from titanium-containing molecules depends on the composition of the original mineral ores or feedstock. Two methods are used to manufacture pure TiO₂: a sulphate process and a chloride process.