What are the types of ceramic superplasticizers?
The following are the main types of ceramic superplasticizers:
1. **Inorganic Superplasticizer**: This type of superplasticizer is mainly inorganic electrolytes, usually containing Na+ inorganic salts, such as sodium chloride, sodium silicate, sodium metasilicate, sodium hexametaphosphate, sodium carbonate, and trisodium phosphate. Among them, trisodium phosphate is widely used due to its low price and relatively good comprehensive performance.
2. **Organic Superplasticizers**: These primarily include low molecular weight organic electrolytes and surface active agents as dispersants. The former includes substances such as sodium citrate, humic acid sodium, ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid sodium, and aminotriacetic acid sodium, as well as carboxyethyl ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid sodium. The latter, as dispersants, are mostly anionic and nonionic surface active agents, with cationic and amphoteric surface active agents used less frequently. Anionic surface active agents commonly used include salts of carboxylic acids, sulfonic acids, and sulfates. Nonionic surface active agents can be divided into three categories: polyoxyethylene type, polyol type, and polyether type.
3. **High-molecular-weight superplasticizers**: These are mainly water-soluble high molecular compounds, such as polyacrylamide, polyacrylic acid and its sodium salt, and hydroxyethylcellulose. High-molecular-weight ceramic superplasticizers have adjustable hydrophobic and hydrophilic groups, making their molecular structures comb-like or multi-branched, which greatly enhances their ability to cover and encapsulate dispersed particles compared to the former. Additionally, their dispersion systems are more stable and fluid, making high-molecular-weight ceramic superplasticizers a promising class of highly efficient superplasticizers.
These superplasticizers improve the performance of ceramic slurries by different mechanisms, reducing the water demand while maintaining good fluidity, which plays an important role in improving the efficiency of ceramic production and product quality.
