Foaming Agent

A foaming agent for gypsum is a chemical additive used to generate stable foam within gypsum plaster or products, creating lightweight and porous structures. These agents help produce lightweight gypsum boards, molds, or plaster with improved insulation properties and reduced weight.

How it works:

• The foaming agent is diluted in water and mixed into the gypsum slurry.
• It generates fine, stable foam bubbles that disperse throughout the mixture.
• Once set, the foam creates a lightweight, porous structure.

Usage:

• Usually added as a small percentage of the total water content, often around 0.01% to 0.05% by weight.
• The exact dosage depends on the desired foam quality and product specifications.
• Mix thoroughly to ensure even foam dispersion.

Benefits:

• Produces lightweight gypsum products.
• Improves insulation and soundproofing properties.
• Reduces material weight and cost.

Gypsum board foaming agents play a crucial role in reducing panel weight, construction costs, and enhancing applicability, while simultaneously driving improvements in production processes. These agents are indispensable in the manufacture and application of paper-faced gypsum boards. Such foaming agents not only influence the physical properties of gypsum boards but also exert a profound impact on their cost and market competitiveness.With the continuous advancement of paper-faced gypsum boards, market demands for these products have become increasingly stringent. While ensuring the core possesses sufficient strength, the unit weight of gypsum boards has emerged as a key factor in market selection. Lighter-weight boards not only help reduce construction and transportation costs but also alleviate the physical burden on construction workers, making them more suitable for use in high-rise buildings.

Foaming agent, an additive meticulously formulated from surfactants and surface stabilizers, introduces air into aqueous solutions through mechanical agitation, generating copious amounts of fine, dense foam. After dilution and mixing, this foam is blended with gypsum slurry to produce the ideal raw material for gypsum board manufacturing.During gypsum slurry preparation, foaming agents and water are precisely proportioned through dynamic foaming equipment before entering the mixer for thorough blending with primary and secondary materials. This process yields high-performance, quality-compliant gypsum slurry.Its unique function lies in activating gypsum, altering its crystal lattice structure through steric hindrance effects, accelerating the formation of a network-like gypsum skeleton, thereby significantly enhancing gypsum board strength, reducing bulk density, and achieving comprehensive improvements in raw material conservation and physical properties.

Key performance indicators include fine bubble diameter, strong foaming capacity, excellent stability, and minimal impact on gypsum board strength. Gypsum boards produced with superior foaming technology feature numerous, uniformly distributed, and finely dispersed internal pores. This reduces the board’s unit weight while significantly enhancing its strength, thermal insulation, and other physical properties.Conversely, improper foaming agent selection leads to insufficient bubble volume and poor stability. This results in sparse, irregularly sized pores within the finished gypsum board, adversely affecting performance. Manifestations include increased board weight, substandard strength, and potential bubble accumulation on the gypsum slurry surface—compromising the bond quality between the core and facing paper.