In this work, response surface methodology (RSM) based on five-level, three-variable, and central composite design (CCD) was used to optimize the synthesis of synthetic rutile. With the TiO2 content as the dependent variable, the effects of three independent variables, i.e. temperature, time, and mass, were investigated. The effects of several parameters on the TiO2 content were systematically investigated to identify the optimal experimental conditions. In addition, Raman spectroscopy was used to characterize the synthetic rutile under the optimum condition. The results showed that the obtained second-order polynomial equation explains adequately the non-linear nature of the modeled response. The optimal conditions found to be at the temperature of 1358.30 K, time of 58.77 min, and mass of 80.97 g. Under optimum conditions, the predicted TiO2 content of synthetic rutile was 88.81% while the experimental date was 88.16%. The experimental value after process optimization was found to agree satisfactory with the predicted value. The demonstration of response surface methodology can be applied effectively and efficiently to the synthesis processing of synthetic rutile. (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.