Post Date:8,Dec,2025

Ⅰ. Mother Liquor

Among the many types of mother liquors, the most commonly used are water-reducing and slump-preserving mother liquors. Polycarboxylic acid mother liquors can increase their water-reducing rate by adjusting the ratio of acrylic acid to macromonomer, but this sacrifices their slump-preserving properties. In the struggle between increasing water-reducing rate for cost-effectiveness and improving slump-preserving properties to ensure effectiveness, the performance of water-reducing mother liquors on the market is largely similar.

1. Synthesized using a TPEG macromonomer replacing HPEG;

2. Synthesized using HPEG monomers by replacing a portion of acrylic acid with hydroxyethyl acrylate;

3. Synthesized using a combination of TPEG monomers and hydroxyethyl acrylate.

The ratio of water-reducing and slump-preserving mother liquors can be easily determined during the compounding process. Using slump-preserving mother liquors is a cost-effective process. The higher the slump-preserving properties required for concrete, the greater the amount of slump-preserving mother liquor used. While ensuring slump-preserving properties, the amount of slump-preserving mother liquor should be minimized.

Ⅱ. Retarder

Sodium gluconate: This is inexpensive and provides a moderate water reduction rate. It offers the best value for money and is the most common retarder used in concrete mixes. However, it may reduce the workability of concrete.

Ⅲ. Defoamers and Air-Entraining Agents

A certain amount of air-entraining agent in concrete is beneficial for improving concrete’s fluidity, workability, and pumpability, reducing segregation and bleeding, and enhancing concrete uniformity and durability. However, the dosage of air-entraining agent should not be too high. Excessive air content increases air compressibility, creating an unsaturated state and increasing pump pressure loss during pumping. With the evolution of polycarboxylate superplasticizers, the variety of air-entraining and defoaming agents is even more diverse than that of parent solutions. Defoamers are used to reduce the air content in concrete and eliminate large bubbles that are detrimental to concrete. The dosage is generally less than 0.03%.