Currently, titanium dioxide as a food additive is classified as GRAS, or “generally recognized as safe.” 

Near sample

It's sort of ironic, maybe ironic is the wrong word, that the ingredient in paint that makes your kitchen shiny also makes your Hostess cupcakes shiny, Environmental Working Group's senior vice president of government affairs Scott Faber added.

In a 2021, Chinese researchers examined the impact of E171 on lipid digestion and vitamin D3 bioaccessibility in a simulated human gastrointestinal tract model. They examined Vitamin D’s bioaccessibility, or the amount it was released in the gastrointestinal tract, becoming available for absorption, and found it “significantly decreased from 80% to 74%” with the addition of E171. In the experiment, E171 decreased lipid digestion dose-dependently. Researchers wrote: “The findings of this study enhance our understanding toward the potential impact of E171 on the nutritional attributes of foods for human digestion health.”  The study was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 

This study & others have lead France to ban Titanium Dioxide as a Food Additive.

Additionally, the construction sector benefits from MBR9668’s properties. Architectural coatings that incorporate this advanced titanium dioxide ensure enhanced resistance to UV degradation, meaning buildings can maintain their visual appeal and structural integrity longer than those using inferior materials. The superior performance against fungal and algal growth in exterior paints is another advantage, making MBR9668 an attractive option for developers concerned about the maintenance and lifespan of their structures.

Conclusion

A great number of other brands with fancy names have gone out of the German market, because of some defects in the processes of manufacture. The English exporters, as a rule, offer three or four grades of lithopone, the lowest priced consisting of about 12 per cent zinc sulphide, the best varying between 30 and 32 per cent zinc sulphide. A white pigment of this composition containing more than 32 per cent zinc sulphide does not work well in oil as a paint, although in the oilcloth and shade cloth industries an article containing as high as 45 per cent zinc sulphide has been used apparently with success. Carefully prepared lithopone, containing 30 to 32 per cent sulphide of zinc with not over 1.5 per cent zinc oxide, the balance being barium sulphate, is a white powder almost equal to the best grades of French process zinc oxide in whiteness and holds a medium position in specific gravity between white lead and zinc oxide. Its oil absorption is also fairly well in the middle between the two white pigments mentioned, lead carbonate requiring 9 per cent of oil, zinc oxide on an average 17 per cent and lithopone 13 per cent to form a stiff paste. There is one advantage in the manipulation of lithopone in oil over both white lead and zinc oxide, it is more readily mis-cible than either of these, for some purposes requiring no mill grinding at all, simply thorough mixing with the oil. However, when lithopone has not been furnaced up to the required time, it will require a much greater percentage of oil for grinding and more thinners for spreading than the normal pigment. Pigment of that character is not well adapted for use in the manufacture of paints, as it lacks in body and color resisting properties and does not work well under the brush. In those industries, where the paint can be applied with machinery, as in shade cloth making, etc., it appears to be preferred, because of these very defects. As this sort of lithopone, ground in linseed oil in paste form, is thinned for application to the cloth with benzine only, and on account of its greater tendency to thicken, requires more of this comparatively cheap thinning medium, it is preferred by most of the manufacturers of machine painted shade cloth. Another point considered by them is that it does not require as much coloring matter to tint the white paste to the required standard depth as would be the case if the lithopone were of the standard required for the making of paint or enamels. On the other hand, the lithopone preferred by the shade cloth trade would prove a failure in the manufacture of oil paints and much more so, when used as a pigment in the so-called enamel or varnish paints. Every paint manufacturer knows, or should know, that a pigment containing hygroscopic moisture does not work well with oil and driers in a paint and that with varnish especially it is very susceptible to livering on standing and to becoming puffed to such an extent as to make it unworkable under the brush. While the process of making lithopone is not very difficult or complicated, the success of obtaining a first class product depends to a great extent on the purity of the material used. Foreign substances in these are readily eliminated by careful manipulation, which, however, requires thorough knowledge and great care, as otherwise the result will be a failure, rendering a product of bad color and lack of covering power.

This route affords a product that is 29.4 wt % ZnS and 70.6 wt % BaSO₄. Variations exist, for example, more ZnS-rich materials are produced when zinc chloride is added to the mixture of zinc sulfate and barium sulfide.

Is titanium dioxide safe?