Fluidizing effects of polymers with various anchoring groups in cement pastes and their sensitivity to environmental temperatures

We synthesized various polymers with different functional groups of ─COO⁻, ─SO₃⁻, and ≡N⁺─ to study the impact of the environmental temperature (25, 50, and 80 °C) on the dispersing capability by measuring the fluidity of fresh cement paste, total organic carbon, ζ potential, and isothermal calorimetry. The results show that no adsorption was observed for the cement pastes containing acrylic acid, 2-acrylamido-2-methyl propane sulfonic acid, and [3-(methacryloylamino)propyl] trimethyl ammonium chloride, probably because of the trace amount of adsorption, whereas the fluidity of the pastes was indeed improved by the addition of these chemicals. Generally, for the polymers containing various functional groups, the adsorption capability was in the order ─COO⁻ > ─SO₃⁻ > ≡N⁺─. The dispersing capability for the carboxylate superplasticizer was robust to the change in the temperature, whereas it was dramatically weakened by the increase in temperature for sulfonate superplasticizer, although the adsorption amount increased along with the temperature rise. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47494.