What substitute for titanium dioxide would you recommend and what are the advantages and disadvantages?
Titanium dioxide has always been used in paints in combination with a filler - not so much for economic reasons, although question of price obviously also play a part - than to improve the optical qualities of the paint film.
Only in cases where this is not so, for whatever reason will it be possible to replace some of the titanium dioxide by a filler, which would also result in cost advantages in view of the current price situation.
Most
paint formulations
however contain some filler, whether kaolin, whiting, talc etc and with good reason. The filler particles serve as a sort of spacer device to ensure maximum brightening and hiding power.Certain advantages - albeit slight - could be archieved by using another kind of filler, e.g. one with relatively high refractive index such as blanc-fixe.
The effetiveness of a true white pigment such as titanium dioxide cannot, however be even approximately achieved in this way.
