The titanium dioxide market fluctuated in the first two quarters of 2023. These pricing patterns resulted from poor demand and reduced intakes from the downstream industries. Amid the slow demand, the manufacturers were forced to reduce their outputs. With rising inflation rates, production cuts gradually increased. Given the economic downturn, the labor strikes further affected the market dynamics, thereby exerting pressure on the pricing fundamentals.

Relative to a lot of other things that people should be concerned about, titanium dioxide in my mind, is really low on the list. I would be more worried about some substitutes that people are using for titanium dioxide that don't have decades of research associated with it, said Westerhoff.

Lithopone 30% is the perfect solution for partial substitution of TiO2 in fillers due to its very soft nature and hardly any shrinkage properties. 

The integrity of surface skin cells was evaluated with and without solar simulated irradiation. The integrity of the stratum corneum was significantly lower in individuals treated with P25TiO₂NPs under the light in comparison to the ones that received the functionalized nanoparticles. Cell membrane suffering is evident (Fig. 9), and it is in accordance with the ROS levels and macromolecule oxidation found in vitro for the irradiated P25TiO₂NPs. Disruption of the superficial skin layer was observed in all animals treated with no functionalized nanoparticles, under irradiation. This data expands the findings by the group of Professors Fubini and Fenoglio, who showed that P25TiO₂NPs could impact the lipid structure at the top few microns of the stratum corneum [55]. Control skin under irradiation and without any topic formulation did not show changes in cell structure.