12 Kinds of Concrete Additives Used in Refractory Castable, Plastic and Ramming Materials(2)

Since 2022, Russia-Ukraine geopolitical conflicts have intensified, and global energy prices have risen sharply, with international natural gas prices hitting historic highs. As the most important transitional energy source in the transition from fossil energy to non-fossil energy, the share of natural gas in primary energy has increased from 14.6% in 1965 to 24.7% in 2020.  The global gas price indices showed a unilateral downward trend from 2018, bottomed out in 2020, and remained low for a long time. However, since July 2020, the global gas prices have gradually fluctuated upward, and the impact of geopolitical events made the Dutch TTF gas price even hit record highs repeatedly.

An analyst of a securities company believes that the core catalyst of this round of global gas market lies in the lack of investment in upstream oil and gas resources caused by long-term low prices. Since 2020, although the epidemic has led to a decline in demand, the decline in supply has been faster, resulting in a large inventory consumption. In 2021, demand will recover faster than supply (the supply-side is less sensitive to prices, which will be reflected in investment).  

As the world's two largest gas pce powder are also expected to change significantly.

The properties and varieties of concrete additives for refractories, especially refractory castables, ramming materials, plastics and other amorphous refractories are different. The role of an concrete additive is also different due to the difference of the amount of concrete additive, the type of binder used, the ingredients and so on. In the production process of amorphous refractories, the concrete additives mainly used can be divided into the following twelve categories according to their uses:

5. Coagulant

Accelerator can shorten the setting and hardening time of amorphous refractories. The action mechanism of coagulant accelerator is complicated, which varies with the properties of binder and accelerator used. Different binders should use different accelerators of different properties. The accelerators used in calcium aluminate cement binder are mostly basic compounds: NaOH, KOH, Ca (OH) 2, Na2CO3, Na2SiO3, etc.; phosphoric acid and aluminum dihydrogen phosphate binder are used together with activated aluminum hydroxide, talc, magnesium oxide, calcium aluminate cement, etc.; sodium fluorosilicate, aluminum phosphate, sodium phosphate, lime, dicalcium silicate, Glyoxal and so on.

6. Retarder

Retarders can delay the setting and hardening time of amorphous refractories, and the action mechanism of retarders varies with the properties of binders and retarders used. Retarders are mainly used in amorphous refractories bonded with calcium aluminate cement containing fast hardening minerals. The commonly used retarders are low concentration of NaCl, citric acid, tartaric acid, ethylene glycol, glycerol, starch, phosphate, lignosulfonate and so on.

7. Delayed coagulant

The delayed accelerator can cause the binder contained in amorphous refractories to solidify and harden after a certain period of time. For the castable with ultra-fine silica powder as the main binder, calcium aluminate cement can be used as the delayed accelerator, because Al3+ and Ca2+ ions can be released slowly during the hydrolysis process of calcium aluminate cement. After adsorbed on the surface of silica particles, the particles will lose the electric property of coagulation, thus play the role of delayed coagulation.

8. Foaming agent, air entraining agent, and aerating agent

The foaming agent can reduce the surface tension of the liquid and produce a large number of uniform and stable foams. Foaming agents include rosin soap, resin saponin grease, aluminum petroleum sulfonate, hydrolyzed blood, etc., and air entraining agents include rosin heat polymer, Nonionic surfactant, alkylbenzene sulfonate and so on. In addition, there is a kind of aerating agent whose function is to produce bubbles by chemical and physical interaction between aerating agent and water after castable mixing and pouring. It is evenly distributed in the slurry. The commonly used aerating agent is aluminum powder. The aluminum powder is very active and will react with water to release hydrogen, and the escaped H2 gas forms bubbles in the castable. However, the addition of aluminum powder should be appropriate, otherwise the strength of amorphous refractories will be greatly reduced, or uneven connected pores will be caused. This kind of admixture can be used to prepare lightweight porous amorphous refractories.

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Due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the covid-19 pandemic, how will the international situation develop is highly uncertain. It is too difficult to assess its economic impact properly. However, we could see energy prices and commodity prices keep rising and supply chains are disrupted. Therefore, pce powder prices are expected to rise in the future.

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