Key Performance Benefits
SEED’s HPMC (Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose) serves as a multifunctional additive in ceramic body formulations and glaze suspensions, providing unique combinations of water retention, binding, plasticizing HPMC’s excellent water-binding capacity controls moisture distribution and retention in ceramic masses during forming operations, ensuring uniform plasticity and preventing premature drying that could cause cracking, warping, or uneven shrinkage. In plastic forming processes including throwing, jiggering, and hand-building, HPMC enhances workability by increasing clay plasticity and reducing stickiness. HPMC ensures uniform moisture loss throughout the ceramic body thickness, producing defect-free greenware ready for firing.
SEED’s CMC (Carboxymethyl Cellulose) offers complementary functionality in ceramic applications. CMC provides excellent deflocculation and dispersion of ceramic particles in water-based slips and slurries, reducing viscosity and enabling higher solids content with maintained fluidity. In slip casting operations, CMC controls slip viscosity and cast body density, ensuring uniform casting thickness and preventing defects like differential settling or air entrapment. CMC facilitates clean mold release and reduces casting cycle times by controlling moisture migration during casting. CMC demonstrates excellent compatibility with ceramic raw materials including various clays (kaolin, ball clay, fire clay), feldspars, quartz, alumina, zirconia, and other minerals used in traditional and advanced ceramics.
