The effect of drying on dispersions of nano-particulate titanium dioxide in ethylene glycol

✍ Scribed by Terry A. Egerton; Liwei Wang

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 701 KB
• Volume: 182
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0032-5910
• DOI: 10.1016/j.powtec.2007.05.002

✦ Synopsis

This paper first demonstrates that the UV attenuation of a well-milled aqueous dispersion of nano-particulate rutile TiO 2 is 200 times greater than the attenuation of visible 550 nm light. The corresponding UVattenuation of rutile dispersions in ethylene glycol is however only ∼ 50% of that of the aqueous dispersion. It is shown that the different behaviour of suspensions in water and in ethylene glycol depends on the way in which the TiO 2 was dried. If the rutile is pre-treated, by washing in ethanol before conventional oven drying, the differences between the optical properties of the aqueous and non-aqueous suspensions can be eliminated. Possible reasons for the beneficial effects of the ethanol pre-treatment are proposed.