The additive goes into a lot of personal care products to whiten and brighten colors and to make them opaque, like toothpaste and makeup.

Because of health risks, France banned titanium dioxide as a food additive in 2020. Two years later the European Union also banned titanium dioxide as a food additive. 

Overall, the Food Directorate's comprehensive review of the available science of TiO₂ as a food additive showed:

Molecular weight: 412.23

Prices increased somewhat in the Asian market during the third quarter of 2021. After a steady recovery since mid-June, its price in India fell slightly in August, pushed down by lower import prices. Titanium dioxide prices continued to rise in the Chinese domestic market, with FOB Wuhu talks for Rutile grade TiO2 settling at 3125 USD/MT for the week ending September 24th.

The North American region suffered from the excess influx of material in the market, especially from the Asian countries, in the first half of the third quarter. The quarter, however, showed signs of significant improvement with a rise in the number of offtakes. Further, the lack of labor in the US challenged the rates of production of titanium dioxide and resulted in the depletion in the level of existing inventories, pushing the titanium dioxide price graph in an upward direction.

The production of ROS was studied on white blood cells as a model to screen the effect on eukaryotic cells after being exposed to samples and solar simulated irradiation (according to the level of penetration under the skin). For that purpose, the leukocytes were separated from anticoagulated fresh blood using the Ficoll-Hypaque reactive in a well-known technique [33]. Then, 50 μL of suspensions of P25TiO₂NPs (0.2 mg/mL and 0.02 mg/mL), vitaminB2@P25TiO₂NPs (0.2 mg/mL and 0.02 mg/mL) and vitamin B2 (0.2 mg/mL and 0.02 mg/mL) were prepared and mixed with 50 μL of white blood cells suspension. A solution of 3% H₂O₂ was used as positive control and PBS as negative control. Then, the samples were irradiated using the LED panel for 3 and 6 h to simulate the light penetration into the skin. Also, a set of samples was kept in the dark as control. Finally, the ROS were detected through the colorimetric assay employing the nitroblue tetrazolium salt (NBT salt) and the absorbance at 650 nm was measured. The experiment was reproduced twice; the standard deviation was calculated and p-value < 0.05 were considered significant.

Abstract