Aluminum hydroxide is a white, bulky, water-insoluble, fine powder of specific gravity 2.42 and refractive index 1.

535, used as a base for lake pigments, for making gloss white, as a water repellent in textile and paper coatings, and as an antacid in medicine. Boehmite, of Du Pont, used in cosmetics, is called colloidal alumina, but it is an aluminum monohydrate, AlOOH, made by polymerizing aluminum cations in a water solution. Baymal of this company, used for coatings, adhesives, paints and for making dense ceramics, is similar. The powder is in the form of tiny fibrils, 197 nin (5 nm) in diameter and 5,906 nin (150 nm) long. In coatings the fibrils interlock the molecules into a tight adherent film. In paints the powder acts as a thixotropic material to prevent sagging or running on vertical walls. The powder is both a hydrophilic material, that is, water-soluble, and an organophilic material soluble in oils and organic solvents. An aluminum monohydrate has been used as a filler in coatings and will give a hydrophilic coating on normally hydrophobic surfaces. It is in crystals 0.2 _in (0.005 _m) in size, agglomerated into particles of about 1,732 _in (44 _m). It has very high bulking properties and is used also in cosmetics. Sumitomo Chemical can make particles as fine as 12 to 787 _in (0.3 to 20 _m) from aluminum hydroxide by hightemperature chemical vapor deposition in inert atmosphere.