Function of cellulose ether in mortar

Cellulose ether plays an important role in mortar in three aspects: first, it has excellent water retention capacity, second, it has an impact on mortar consistency and thixotropy, and third, it interacts with cement.

The factors that affect the water retention of mortar also include cellulose ether viscosity, addition amount, particle fineness and use temperature.
It is well known that the higher the viscosity, the better the water retention effect. However, the increase of viscosity means the increase of the added amount, but the higher the viscosity, the higher the molecular weight of HPMC, and the corresponding decrease in its solubility, which has a negative impact on the strength and construction performance of mortar. The higher the viscosity, the more obvious the thickening effect of mortar, but it is not proportional. The higher the viscosity, the stickier the wet mortar will be. During construction, the stickiness of the scraper and the substrate is high. But it is not helpful to increase the structural strength of the wet mortar itself. Therefore, it is not recommended to use this water retention method, which increases the cost and does not have a good effect.
The larger the amount of cellulose ether added to the mortar, the better the water retention performance, the higher the viscosity, and the better the water retention performance.