The Effect of Cellulose Ethers on Water Retention in Freshly-Mixed Mortars

Cellulose ethers are polymers frequently introduced into mortar formulations in order to improve water retention capacity and workability of the freshly-mixed materials. Physico-chemical parameters of these admixtures (molecular weight, granulometry, substitution degrees, etc) seem to have a strong influence on mortar water retention capacity. In this paper, the influence of cellulose ether molecular weight on mortar water retention and its consistency was studied. Moreover, a new method was used to evaluate mortar consistency, named Consistor Baronnie method. This method was confirmed with rheological measurements