Is The Rising Titanium Dioxide Price Acceptable?

There is no doubt that the titanium dioxide (TiO2) market is booming this year. From the beginning of 2017, global giant manufacturers began to raise prices, so did various China manufacturers. The market demand of Chinese titanium dioxide consistently high. Affected by raw materials as well as on and off production, Chinese titanium dioxide prices keep soaring.

Affected by previous stock and manufacturers' wait-and-see attitude, the price is not at the peak yet. In early March, titanium dioxide prices started to increase. Many enterprises decided to wait-and-see after mid March. On March 24, price increases of Xinli titanium broke the nearly 10 days of price stableness and the second price surge in March began.

Compared to February, TiO2 prices are at least doubled in March. Billions raised their prices twice in March. High titanium dioxide prices and the downstream flat orders went two extremes.

Numerous chemical raw materials show a trend of increasing prices in 2017. The production cost increase gives heavy pressure to downstream buyers. They tend to ponder even longer before making decision about purchasing frequency and quantity. Part of enterprises are still waiting to see the overall market and hope the titanium dioxide prices won’t raise so fast.

At least 10 TiO2 manufacturers announced price increase on March 29, with the reasons of higher costs in raw material, shipping and so on. Pricing Commission of Lomon Billions decided that various models prices of titanium dioxide (including both sulfate and chloride grades) for local market raised one thousand yuan per ton, and prices for international market are increased $100 per ton. This price adjustment applied to wholly-owned and majority-owned subsidiaries as below: Sichuan Lomon Titanium Industry Co., Ltd., Xiangyang Lomon Titanium Industry Limited Company and Henan Billions New Material Co., Ltd. Please Read more!
Source: https://www.okchem.com/news/rising-titanium-dioxide-price-acceptable.html

Will Titanium Dioxide be Replaced by Silicon Powder?

On March 17, Huntsman announced that they plan to shut down the titanium dioxide (TiO2) production facility in Calais France in the third quarter of 2017.
Titanium dioxide enterprises have raised their prices since 2016. According to analyses, price of titanium dioxide is expected to exceed 20,000 yuan per ton in 2017.
Titanium dioxide is applicable to many areas, such as battery, paint and coating, cosmetic industries. The buyers, especially those in the coating industry, feel quite helpless about the price increase as they have to reduce the margin to survive.

It can not be denied that titanium dioxide plays an important role in paint and coating industry. Pigment grade titanium dioxide has extensive usages as it has high refractive index, strong tinting strength and covering power, good dispersion and whiteness, nontoxicity, stable physical and chemical properties as well as excellent optical and electrical properties.

The use of tio2 can greatly reduce the amount of pigment in the coating and intense the colors in paints. The amount of titanium dioxide accounts for more than 90% of the total pigment used in paints and more than 95% of the white pigment for paints.
Because of the big consumption in the coating industry and increasing TiO2 price, can coating enterprises choose an appropriate product to replace titanium dioxide to save cost, such as silicon micro powder?



Silicon powder has good stability and has played an important role as a paint filler. Characteristics of whiteness, hardness, suspension, dispersion, low absorption rate and high resistivity ensure it increases the corrosion resistance, wear resistance, insulation resistance, high temperature performance of coatings.

Adding silicon powder to flame retardant insulation coating can improve the thixotropic properties of coatings. These coatings could coat evenly without cracks.
Silicon powder from OKCHEM is nontoxic, odorless and low metal content. It does not contain organic substances pollution. This chemical can improve UV resistance of the coating and has good thermal insulation effect.

Silicon powder has features such as short grinding time, strong adhesion and fast drying. It could expand the capacity when used in the processing of mixed paint, primer and rust-proof paint. Besides, it has a significant effect on increasing paint fineness, leveling properties, film hardness, and reducing coating grinding time, water, rust and corrosion-resistant properties, pigment dispersion, storage stability of paints.

Due to the pressure on environmental regulations, upswing price of titanium dioxide and China’s rich quartz resources, silicon powder shows an attractive and broad market prospects. Please read more here for more information!
Source: https://www.okchem.com/news/will-titanium-dioxide-be-replaced-by-silicon-powder.html