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 water reducer are also expected to change significantly.

Introduction to Water Reducer

The water-reducing agent or concrete water reducer is a kind of concrete admixture that can reduce the water consumption under the condition of keeping the slump of concrete basically unchanged. It has a dispersive effect on cement particles, can improve its workability, reduce water consumption per unit, improve the fluidity of concrete mixture, or reduce the amount of cement per unit, saving cement.

 

Applications of Water Reducer

The water reducing agent is suitable for all kinds of industrial and civil construction, water conservancy, transportation, port, municipal engineering precast, and casting reinforced concrete;

Suitable for high strength, ultra-high-strength, and medium strength concrete, as well as the requirements of early strength, moderate frost resistance, and large mobility concrete;

Suitable for steam curing precast concrete components;

Suitable for water reduction and enhancement components of various compound admixtures (master material).

 

Mechanism of Water Reducer

1.Dispersion: After mixing with water, due to the hydration of cement particles, cement particles’ surface forms a double electric layer, which forms a solvation water film. And the cement particle surface with opposite charges makes cement particles between associating with cooperation, to form a slurry flocculation structure, making that the 10% ~ 30% of the mixing water is wrapped in cement particles, so that they cannot participate in free flow and lubrication, affecting the fluidity of concrete mixture. When adding water reducing agent, because the water reducing agent molecules adsorbed on the surface of cement particles can redirect, cement particle surface (usually a negative charge) with the same charge, form the electrostatic repulsion, prompting the cement particles to disperse mutually, flocculation structure collapse, release the wrapped part of the water, participate in the flow, so as to effectively increase the liquidity of concrete mixture.

2.Lubrication: Water-reducing agent in the hydrophilic base polarity is very strong, so the cement particle surface of the water-reducing agent adsorption film and water molecules can form a stable layer of solvated water film, this layer of water film has good lubrication, can effectively reduce the sliding resistance between cement particles, so that the fluidity of concrete is further improved.

3.Steric resistance: The hydrophilic branch chain in the structure of the water reducing agent is extended in an aqueous solution, so as to form a hydrophilic three-dimensional adsorption layer with a certain thickness on the surface of the adsorbed cement particles.  When the cement particles close, the adsorption layer began to overlap, that is, the cement particles produce space resistance, the more overlap, and space resistance repulsion, the greater the condensation of cement particles hinder the greater, so that the slump of concrete to maintain good.

4.Sustained release effect of graft copolymerization branch chain: New type of water-reducing agent such as poly (carboxylic acid water-reducing agent in the process of preparation, the molecules of water-reducing agent on the grafting on some of the branched-chain, the branched-chain not only can provide space steric effect, and, in the high basicity of cement hydration environment, the branched-chain can also slowly is cut off, to release more carboxylic acid with dispersion effect, so that it can improve the effectiveness of the dispersion of cement particles, and control the slump loss.

 

Suppliers of Concrete Additives

TRUNNANO is a reliable concrete additives supplier with over 12-year experience in nano-building energy conservation and nanotechnology development.

If you are looking for high-quality concrete additives, please feel free to contact us and send an inquiry. (sales@cabr-concrete.com)

We accept payment via Credit Card, T/T, West Union, and Paypal. Trunnano will ship the goods to customers overseas through FedEx, DHL, by air, or by sea.

The water reducer industry has experienced demand expectations driven by the rise and the off-season tired stock driven by the seasonal decline in two rounds of the market. Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic and other factors, inventories of manufacturers continue to accumulate, putting pressure on market sentiment. In addition to off-season factors, the weak trend of water reducer also reflects the market's concern about the epidemic and some other related enterprises' financial situation. 

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