While the FDA maintains that the regulated use of titanium dioxide is safe, the European Food Safety Authority and some other experts warn of potential, serious health risks.
JECFA previously assessed titanium dioxide at its 13th meeting, at which time the expert committee assigned a “not specified” ADI for the additive due to an absence of significant absorption and a lack of toxicological effects in the available experimental animal and human studies. Since its original evaluation by JECFA, titanium dioxide has become a public point of contention, with its ban being introduced (and then subsequently withdrawn) in California legislation in 2023, a legal battle playing out in the EU over the additive’s ban and classification as a carcinogen in 2022, and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) calling titanium dioxide unsafe. However, supporters of titanium dioxide say that claims about its dangers are founded in unreliable studies, and some recent research has supported its safety as a food additive.
For those wishing to limit or avoid exposure to titanium dioxide in foods, there are some steps you can take.
It's also added directly to food; mainly for coloring, but also as a thickener and to keep some powdered food, like confectioner's sugar, from clumping.
Although the evidence for general toxic effects was not conclusive, on the basis of the new data and strengthened methods our scientists could not rule out a concern for genotoxicity and consequently they could not establish a safe level for daily intake of TiO2 as a food additive.
Lithopone is added to plastic resin systems to enhance UV protection of the final plastic products that includes outdoor plastics and automotive plastics. It is used as a white pigment for plastics such as polyolefin, vinyl resin, ABS resin, polystyrene, polycarbonate, nylon, and polyoxymethylene (POM). It ensures that UV rays do not penetrate and damage the product and its appearance.
Developing new Lithopone formulations, one that enhances the properties of the existing Lithopone is anticipated to boost the demand for Lithopone white pigment during the forecast period. Reinforced Lithopone is one such development, wherein a copolymer is added to the polymerization reaction to yield Lithopone with an increased weather resistance and an anti-ultraviolet property. Moreover, development of nano-scale Lithopone is also anticipated to attract market interest during the forecast period.
As they mimic the synapses in biological neurons, memristors became the key component for designing novel types of computing and information systems based on artificial neural networks, the so-called neuromorphic electronics (Zidan, 2018; Wang and Zhuge, 2019; Zhang et al., 2019b). Electronic artificial neurons with synaptic memristors are capable of emulating the associative memory, an important function of the brain (Pershin and Di Ventra, 2010). In addition, the technological simplicity of thin-film memristors based on transition metal oxides such as TiO2 allows their integration into electronic circuits with extremely high packing density. Memristor crossbars are technologically compatible with traditional integrated circuits, whose integration can be implemented within the complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor platform using nanoimprint lithography (Xia et al., 2009). Nowadays, the size of a Pt-TiOx-HfO2-Pt memristor crossbar can be as small as 2 nm (Pi et al., 2019). Thus, the inherent properties of memristors such as non-volatile resistive memory and synaptic plasticity, along with feasibly high integration density, are at the forefront of the new-type hardware performance of cognitive tasks, such as image recognition (Yao et al., 2017). The current state of the art, prospects, and challenges in the new brain-inspired computing concepts with memristive implementation have been comprehensively reviewed in topical papers (Jeong et al., 2016; Xia and Yang, 2019; Zhang et al., 2020). These reviews postulate that the newly emerging computing paradigm is still in its infancy, while the rapid development and current challenges in this field are related to the technological and materials aspects. The major concerns are the lack of understanding of the microscopic picture and the mechanisms of switching, as well as the unproven reliability of memristor materials. The choice of memristive materials as well as the methods of synthesis and fabrication affect the properties of memristive devices, including the amplitude of resistive switching, endurance, stochasticity, and data retention time.
Polyvinyl Butyral Resin (PVB) is a solvent Resin synthesized by the acetal reaction of Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) and butyraldehyde in contact with coal.
Because Pvb Resin itself contains a lot of hydroxyl groups, it can bridge with some thermosetting resins to improve the properties of chemicals and film hardness.
Because PVB resin has the above excellent characteristics, it is widely used in adhesive safety glass intermediate film of automobile and building, rust cutting primer, baking paint, wood paint, printing ink, adhesive of electronic ceramics and printed circuit board, adhesive between metal and metal, between metal and plastic, modifier of hot-melt adhesive, iron dimension waterproof processing of textile, etc. A variety of new industrial applications are also continuously developed and applied.
The general characteristics of PVB are as follows:
The appearance of polyvinyl butyral (PVB) resin is white spherical porous particles or powder, and its specific gravity is 1:1; However, the filling density is only 0.20 ~ 0.35g/ml.
Thermal properties
The glass transfer temperature (TG) of polyvinyl butyral (PVB) resin ranges from 50 ℃ of low degree of recombination to 90 ℃ of high degree of recombination; The glass transfer temperature can also be adjusted by adding an appropriate amount of Plasticizer to reduce it below 10 ℃.
Mechanical properties
The coating of polyvinyl butyral (PVB) resin has good water resistance, water resistance and oil resistance (it is resistant to aliphatic, mineral, animal and vegetable oils, but not to sesame oil). PVB is widely used in printing inks and coatings because it contains high hydroxyl groups and has good dispersibility to pigments.
In addition, its chemical structure contains both hydrophobic acetal and acetic ACID groups and hydrophilic hydroxyl groups, so PVB has good adhesion to glass, metal, plastic, leather and wood.
Chemical reaction
Any chemical that can react with secondary alcohol will also react with PVB. Therefore, in many applications of PVB, it is often used with thermosetting resin to bridge and harden with the hydroxyl group of PVB, so as to achieve the characteristics of chemical resistance, solvent resistance and water resistance.
Of course, films with different characteristics (such as hardness, toughness, impact resistance, etc.) can be prepared according to different types of thermosetting resin and different mixing ratio with PVB.
Safety properties
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.
1.Mainly used in latex paints, water-based paints, inks, rubber, plastics, etc., replacing 30% of rutile-type titanium dioxide in latex paints, still maintaining the original film properties, and has the effect of reducing costs.
The Market Dynamics of Wholesale Titanium Dioxide
As for titanium dioxide, the FDA approved titanium dioxide for use as a food additive in 1966. The last time the agency reviewed the additive’s safety, according to the Guardian, was in 1973.
chemical products manufacturer. Cleaning products, laundry detergents, and personal care items such as shampoo and lotion are all made by these companies. These products make our lives easier and more comfortable, allowing us to maintain cleanliness and hygiene with ease.
How can food businesses comply with this Regulation?