Methyl cellulose（MC）：
1. Appearance: Methyl cellulose is white or off-white fibrous or granular powder, odorless.
2. Apparent density: 0.30-0.70g/cm3, density about 1.3g/cm3.
3. Properties: Methyl cellulose is almost insoluble in absolute ethanol, ether and acetone.
Itrapidly disperses and swells in hot water of 80~90>°C, dissolves rapidly after cooling.Therefore the aqueous solution is quite stable at normal temperature.
It gelsat high temperature and the gel can change with the solution according to the temperature.
Dissolution method:
The product（Methyl cellulose） is added directly into the water, which will cause agglomeration and dissolution, but this dissolves slowly and is difficult.
There are three simple ways :
1. Hot water method:
MC is insoluble in water, However can be evenly dispersed in hot water. When cooling, two typical methods are described as follows:
- 1.（1）Put the required amount of hot water in the container and heat it to about 70 °C.
- second the MC was gradually added with slow stirring the MC was floated on the surface of the water.
- Then a slurry was gradually formed, and the slurry was cooled under stirring.
- 1.（2）Add 1/3 or 2/3 of the required amount of water to the vessel and heat to 70 ° C.
- Disperse MC according to 1) to prepare hot water slurry;
- Then add the remaining amount of cold water or ice water to In the hot water slurry, the mixture was cooled after stirring.
2. Powder mixing method:
Methyl cellulose powder particles are mixed with equal or larger amounts of other powdery ingredients by dry mixing, and then dissolved by adding water, Meanwhile the MC can be dissolved without agglomeration.
3. Organic solvent wetting method:
Methyl cellulose is pre-dispersed or wetted with an organic solvent such as ethanol, ethylene glycol or oil, then dissolved in water and the MC can be dissolved smoothly.
USE: This product is widely used in construction, building materials, dispersive coatings. etc.
For example：
- It is used as a binder, thickener and water retaining agent in building materials,
- As a film-forming agent and thickener in the coating industry.
- Also widely used in oil drilling and daily chemical industries.