Why is HPMC an essential ingredient in cement-based tile adhesives?

Cement-based tile adhesive is an adhesive used to bond tiles to various substrates. HPMC is an essential component in the formulation of tile adhesives. Whether it is basic tile adhesive or high-quality tile adhesive, HPMC plays an important role.

1. Add water

The amount of water added to the tile adhesive refers to the amount of water added to the dry powder tile adhesive in order to meet the specified use requirements. In laboratory tests, the amount of water added is adjusted by testing the viscosity of the fresh mortar. Different HPMC brings different mortar water requirements.

2. Anti-slip

The HPMC can provide some basic slip resistance for tile adhesive, HPMC can significantly improve the slip resistance of tile adhesive.

3. Drying time

Moisture volatilization and hardening of fresh mortar leads to crusting, which can lead to insufficient effective wet-bonding area of the tile. The time from fresh mortar application to skinning is defined as the open time. HPMC can significantly delay skinning, thereby increasing the effective wet adhesion area of the tile.

4. Adjust time and water retention rate

The water retention rate of tile adhesives is usually higher than 98%, so the water retention rate cannot be used to determine the quality of the tile adhesive, and the adjustment time is introduced as another method to characterize the water retention rate. HPMC has a very high shrinkage capacity. As long as there is water in the mortar system, the cement in the tile adhesive can continue to hydrate to produce mineral crystallization, which is the basis for the cement-based tile adhesive to produce bonding strength. Secondly, the water retention capacity can also greatly reduce the occurrence of cracks and make the mortar easy to construct. The water retention rate is positively correlated with the viscosity and addition amount of HPMC.