PIGMENTS | TITANIUM DIOXIDE
capacity in Germany in early 2014 and there are indications that further capacity expansions may be made in the not-too-distant future. Meanwhile, independent European distributor
Cornelius Group said in July that it was collaborat- ing with a Swiss manufacturer, VB Technochemi- cals, to market an extender product solution in the wake of the TiO2
shortage. It is offering VB White, a
Figure 1: TiO2 prices have been on a rollercoaster over the last seven years, but are now back close to where they were around 2000. Prices of finished products have been much less volatile. Source, Chemours
“We will continue to adjust production through- out our circuit to meet our customers’ require- ments,” it said in a recent presentation to the Goldman Sachs Basic Materials conference in May. “Chemours’ manufacturing capability, enhanced by flexibility, can economically vary production to meet customer demand.”
have been stepping in with possible ways to fill the gap between supply and demand. FP Pigments of Finland, for instance, offers its FP-500 Series, which is based on TiO2
Filling the gap In recent months, suppliers of alternative pigments to TiO2
but is said to “combine the functionality of a TiO2 ‘spacer’ with
the high performance of an alternative white pigment to provide true cost-effective opacity.” The alternative pigment is precipitated calcium
carbonate (produced by the company), which fully encapsulates the TiO2
particles. The products contain around 80% CaCO3 . FP Pigments says that in
compounds, FP-500 Series products can replace up to 20% of pure TiO2
with no loss of performance; in
some cases, it says performance can be improved. “For maximum opacity, there is no alternative to
TiO2
,” says Paul Dietz, Group Technical Director at the company (he previously spent many years with Hunstsman). “But we can make it more effective.” With prices of TiO2
hydrophobic coated synthetic barium sulphate that is specifically designed for white and coloured masterbatch, compound and composites. Cornelius says the extender does not affect vinyl properties and claims improved quality and brightness of the product to a higher standard than TiO2
.
“In the past, the cost of these extender products has been relatively high compared to TiO2
,”
Cornelius says. “However, the current price of TiO2 means they are now comparable. We are able to
deliver a solution to customers that will minimise the impact of the TiO2
Alternative options At RD Titan Group Innovative TiO2
, co-founder
Andriy Gonchar says the company developed technology several years ago that will allow low-cost, uncoated and unmilled, rutile typically coming from China to be converted into finished hydrophobic TiO2
shortage on their business.”
suitable for plastics (Compound-
ing World October 2016). He calls this theoretical product Pigmentiox RP-113, which he says has properties very similar to grades such as Ti-Pure R-104 from Chemours and Tioxide R-FC5 from Venator (previously Huntsman). In a presentation that Gonchar is due to give at
the APT ’17 Advances in Plastics Technology conference in Sosnowiec, Poland, next month, he will describe a turnkey plant his company has developed for producing upwards of 5,000 tonnes/
currently hovering around €3000/
tonne, users can potentially make savings of more than one euro per kilogram (Figure 1). FP Pigments says FP-500 pigments are easy to incorporate in standard compounding operations and can be used in a wide range of plastic processing equipment; profile and pipe extrusion, film calendering and blowing. They can be used in PVC (FP-510), and in masterbatches for polyolefins (FP-550). The company, which has production operations in Germany and the US as well as Finland, reports a good market response to its products; it doubled
24 COMPOUNDING WORLD | October 2017
Figure 2: Effect on opacity of 50-micron PE blown film using TiO2 and FP-550 (using 60% masterbatch) Source: FP Pigments
www.compoundingworld.com
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