Growth morphology of gypsum in the presence of copolymers

Gypsum is the most abundant natural sulphate, and in industrial application it plays an important role in gypsum based binders. Furthermore, it plays a critical role in the hydration of Portland cement, and then gypsum is one of the most important cement additive. In this paper we investigated the role of two commercial polymeric additives in modifying the crystal habits and size of gypsum, growth in aqueous solution. These two additives belong to the categories of acrylic polymers and they are known only by their commercial names of SP1 and SP3. We found that these substances can act as shape modifiers mainly at concentration over 0.04% by weight, with a shortening in the elongation of gypsum crystal and some change in the characters of {001} form, from stepped to flat, due to a change in the growth mechanism. (C) 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim