Rutile bends light more strongly than almost any other mineral, which is why fine particles of titanium dioxide scatter light so completely and make the whitest pigment there is. The same compound also crystallizes as anatase and brookite; rutile is the stable form.
Research Elements Compound · TiO2 One unit cell, the smallest block that repeats in every direction to build the whole crystal. Atoms on its faces, edges and corners are shared with the neighboring cells. Farther atoms are drawn fainter. Atom positions from the Crystallography Open Database entry 9015662 (Howard, C. J.; Sabine, T. M.; Dickson, F., 1991). Scattered through granite, gneiss and schist as small dark-red crystals, and concentrated by the sea into heavy mineral sands: Richards Bay in South Africa, the east coast of Australia, Sierra Leone and the beaches of Kerala. Golden needles of rutile inside quartz are sold as rutilated quartz, and fine needles of it inside corundum make the six-rayed star in a star sapphire. Dredged from beach and dune sands by floating dredges or dug with excavators. The sand is run down spirals that separate the heavy grains from quartz, then magnets take out the ilmenite and electrostatic separators pick the rutile from the zircon. Most of it is chlorinated and burned back to titanium dioxide pigment, the white in paint, paper and toothpaste; some goes to titanium metal and to the coating on welding rods.Rutile
Elements
Crystal structure
Cell: a = b = 4.5937 Å, c = 2.9587 Å, all angles 90°
Space group: P 42/m n mWhere it's found
How it's mined
Notes